{"id":402552,"date":"2019-10-16T11:56:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T15:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=402552"},"modified":"2020-04-01T12:35:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T16:35:00","slug":"calling-medicaid-socialized-medicine-worn-scare-tactic-402552","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/calling-medicaid-socialized-medicine-worn-scare-tactic-402552\/","title":{"rendered":"Calling Medicare \u2018socialized medicine\u2019 is a well-worn scare tactic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conservatives have scared Americans into supporting higher health-care costs, while shying away from expanding access<\/a><\/strong>, argues Mical Raz<\/strong><\/a>, the Charles E. and Dale L. Phelps Professor in Public Policy and Health and an associate professor of\u00a0history at the University of Rochester<\/a>. Raz is also a practicing hospitalist at the\u00a0University\u2019s Strong Memorial Hospital.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTaking aim at Medicare, which is popular and a political third rail for elected officials, is risky,\u201d writes Raz in a\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0op-ed, published in the newspaper\u2019s\u00a0Made by History<\/em>\u00a0section<\/a>. \u201cBut the Trump administration thinks it has a winning strategy for doing so: embracing the nearly century-old conservative health-care tactic of warning about the threat of socialized medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Raz, who traces Medicare\u2019s history, these threats do not protect health-care services for consumers, but \u201csimply provide political cover for policies that benefit the industry at the expense of offering quality health care to Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continues: \u201cTrump\u2019s executive order was initially titled \u2018Protecting Medicare From Socialist Destruction\u2019 and subsequently renamed \u2018Protecting and Improving Medicare for Our Nation\u2019s Seniors.\u2019 The stated threat of socialized medicine has routinely been used to deter politicians and voters from supporting policies that would expand access to health care or control rising costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raz, an expert in public policy and health, is the author of\u00a0What\u2019s Wrong with the Poor? Psychiatry, Race and the War on Poverty\u00a0<\/em>(University of North Caroline Press, 2013) and\u00a0The Lobotomy Letters: The Making of American Psychosurgery<\/em>\u00a0(University of Rochester, 2013). She\u2019s currently working on her third book\u2014a history of child abuse policy in the United States from the 1970s to today.<\/p>\n