Is government mandated and subsidized childrens' health coverage a step towards Socialism?

Question

Not the Socialism of Marx, but the Socialism of Norman Thomas; Democratic-Socialism.

Answer 1

its not a first step, nor is it a first half step. Is univerasal health care good? yes. If two people have aids or HIV, one can afford health care, but the other can't. The one affording it lives till the age of 660, and the other dies at the age of 20.Is that fair? I don't think anyone can determine life based on money. Many believe anything "bad" is socialist. Like when Martin Luther King was hated by the goverment people called him a communist/socialist. Its just simple propaganda,marx socialism believed in universal health care, and so did Norman's socialism.But just because they support it doesn't mean its a socialist step, Normans socialism is through democracy, stating if a socialist is elected socialism is achieved. So honsetly the first step torwards Norman socialism is get a member of a socialist party(which barely exist) to be on arunner for president.

Answer 2

I know that by Socialism, you must mean some future state in which some level of common ownership is achieved [1].  However, defining it with the little "s", socialism is simply an arrangement in which property is commonly owned.  To that definition, subsidized childrens' health coverage IS socialism.  There's no need to speak of a "step" toward it.

Socialist plans differ based upon the extent to which they vest ownership in common and the means by which the property is to come under ownership.  No plan may manage complete common ownership.  Generally, you would at least claim ownship of the clothes on your back (or at least possession).  Even failing that, every person owns their body and their mind (though both are often valued but little).

The means of socialization vary by the level of violence employed to achieve the desired state.  The various forms of democratic socialism generally are hailed as being peaceful.  Indeed, compared to violent revolution, they are.  Yet they still rely upon the apparatus of the government (police and tax) to enforce.  They reflect the voluntary will of a majority but are instituted regardless of the protests of the minority.

It is possible to socialize voluntarily.  While mainstream socialists would correctly note a vast difference in what they intend, corporations are an example of voluntary socialization.  Some programs with corporations may be traced to their common ownership.  However, most are, in my opinion, by-products of their cozy relationship with interventionist governments.

In conclusion, subsidized childrens' health coverage is certainly an example of socialism.  Health coverage (and the resources required to run it) are considered public property.

Answer 3

It wouldn't be the first.

We have national highways, a postal service, a standing military, school systems, public universities, police and fire departments, a court system, welfare, social security, meat inspectors (darn nanny state want's to protect us from buying contaminated beef...), government funded research, the CIA, FBI, and so on...

Usually the people who use the term 'socialism' as a blind slur are the sort who can't tell the difference between Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.   All functional nations have some 'socialist' elements - it's part of the whole 'promote the general welfare' clause of the Constitution.  

The real question is where the balance is best struck.   Does the common good outweigh the costs paid.  In this case I think it does.

Answer 4

Of course it's socialism.

Listen, lots of things about socialism 'sound good'.

The problem is, it puts a drag on the economy (the centralized planning aspect of it, the over-regulation), and the end result of that is, overall, LESS people end up getting the benefit that they're trying to achieve.

Case in point:

My brother has lived in China, Thailand, and Cambodia for about the last 10 years.

In China (commies), they provide 'free' health care.

Yippie, right?

Not so fast. They discovered it was so expensive, that if you're lower class (over 90% of the people),  you get what amounts to phony folk medicine, which does almost nothing.

If you go to the hospital, you have to have friends or family feed you, wash you, your bedding, the room, etc.

He said you go into hospital rooms, and there's literally dried blood on the walls, it's filthy, etc. It looks like a dirty public restroom here in the US.

Only rich people there get X-rays, CAT scans, surgery, antibiotics, or any modern western medicine at all.

There just simply isn't enough money for this 'socialist utopia' to take care of people.

And this pattern has repeated itself over and over.

Doing 'just a little bit of it' doesn't somehow make it all OK.

Answer 5

"Liberal Socialism ...  is the immediate task before all rational people.  I believe this idea of a planned world-state is one to which all our thought and knowledge is tending ...  facts and events conspire in its favour ...  It is appearing partially and experimentally at a thousand points."  H.G. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, 1934, p. 668.