Socialism in America
President Trump and the entire RMC are labeling Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as socialists. It’s worth asking what the word “Socialism” actually means or means to them.
In general, it means that the government runs and owns the banks, the factories, the farms, the insurance companies, the hospitals and the economy. There is not much you can identify in the Biden/Harris and Democratic Party plans that is socialist.
What aspects of our economy are in fact socialist? The Post Office, the Fire Department, the Police Department, the US Armed Forces, NASA, the Veterans Administration hospitals, the public schools, the public hospitals, the interstate highways and the public universities.
So what about Medicare for All? First that is not what Biden is proposing, that is what Senator Bernie Sanders was proposing. Under Medicare, we have private doctors, private hospitals, private pharmacies, private nursing homes and private home health care agencies; that is not Socialism. Socialized medical care is what the United Kingdom has with the National Health Service, which owns the hospitals and employs the doctors. Biden does propose allowing people to choose the “public option” in addition to all the private insurance companies. So you could choose Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Kaiser as you do now and you could also choose Medicare (the public option). Seniors and the disabled already have that choice; under Medicare Advantage they can choose private insurance or they can choose traditional Medicare. About 30-40% of seniors and the disabled choose private insurance plans and the rest choose traditional Medicare. In California’s MediCal program, the poor can choose private hospitals and doctors or they can choose the few remaining public hospitals and public clinics; some choose private facilities and others choose public facilities. They can also choose private insurers or public insurers in MediCal; given that choice, more select the public insurers like LA Care or San Francisco Health Plan. Biden is also proposing that in those 12-13 states that have not chosen to expand Medicaid for the poor, that those low income uninsured patients could choose Medicare instead. https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/07/24/weekly-line and https://joebiden.com/healthcare/#
What about child care? Are they going to put my little kids in socialized childcare? No. But you will get some additional federal financial help paying for the childcare you choose for your children and for the elder care at home for your parents or grandparents. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/21/893446328/new-biden-plan-would-spend-nearly-800-billion-on-caregiving
What about the Green New Deal? The Green New Deal is a concept of moving away from the fossil fuel industry that is warming the planet and may be heading us toward extinction towards the use of renewable energy such as solar or wind powered. This would be achieved by 2030 in some versions of the Green New Deal. So if you are buying a hybrid car like a Prius or an electric car like a Tesla, you are helping to reduce global warming. Likewise if you are installing solar panels for electricity, you are helping to reduce global warming. If you are burning coal to produce electricity, you are dirtying the air, adding CO2 gases and having other harmful environmental effects. This is neither capitalism nor socialism; it is a question of whether you believe that climate change is real and whether and how quickly you wish to address the impacts. There would likely be tax impacts, with potential tax advantages involved in shifting to technologies with less pollution and fewer greenhouse gases. It could include stripping some of the large tax advantages associated with the fossil fuel industry and requiring the power companies to evolve from fossil to renewable. Biden is not a supporter of the Green New Deal, but does want to accelerate the development of new technologies to slow global warming. https://slate.com/business/2020/07/joe-bidens-climate-plan-is-the-green-new-deal-minus-the-crazy.html His timelines target 2050 for a carbon free economy.