Socialist Progressives
In reply to the discussion: Dumb question: what's a Socialist? [View all]delrem
(9,688 posts)A universal "single payer" national health plan is, by definition, socialist. Countries which have such plans aren't necessarily 100% socialist in everything. For example, most don't set up a plan where there's a single payer national pizza pie delivery service where the contents and price of each pie is pre-determined.
I honestly don't think USians understand things like a NHS. They don't understand how a NHS automatically regulates the delivery of pharmaceuticals (so countries with a NHS promote generic alternatives to brand name drugs, etc), and promotes healthy life styles in programs which include nurse practitioners, experts, etc., working with community clinics to educate and support the population. As in "an ounce of prevention...." USians don't understand that an NHS is in essence holistic.
I also consider national ownership of natural resources to be an axiomatic socialist program. It *is* just a program because such a program can be changed at a whim, or at a military coup. After which all is lost. This doesn't mean that countries that build such socialist programs can't and don't farm or lease out actual extraction/commercial_exploitation of their natural resources to private companies. It does mean that such countries retain the power to regulate such extraction and to retain market control.