As everyone knows, health care reform has been in full swing lately. President Obama has been trying to sell his proposed changes to health care management all over the place, though this important topic was sidetracked by the Gates incident and subsequent Beer Summit. 

I'm definitely down with health care reform, and have blogged about it a lot (here, here, here, here and here). In these posts, I talked about how the ideal health care system (or medical insurance) would be one managed by a governmental entity, either a totally public system like the one used in Canada since 1966, or a public/private arrangement similar to the health care system in France (which is, in all honesty, better than the Canadian system, though as a Canuck it pains me to admit that).
 
After those posts, I quickly noticed in various discussion forums that neither system would ever see the light of day. Disappointing, but not particularly surprising. I knew from the get-go that universal health care would never happen.

Why not, you ask? Well, Padawan, it seems to me that a hell of a lot of Americans would rather die than have the United States implement a social program that would benefit everybody. Basically, despite the fact that the U.S. already has such socialist institutions as state-funded universities, police and firefighting services, social security and the mail service (among others), these people believe that implementing a national--Universal or Single-Payer--health care system would automatically start the U.S. on a slippery slope to a communist state, where individual freedoms would immediately disappear and the country would end up like one of Ayn Rand's nightmares.

I was amazed at how many people raised the dire threat of communism in the posts and comments I've been reading over the last few weeks, especially those related to health care. Since I know how many of you depend on me for enlightenment, I have therefore taken it upon myself to demystify the whole socialism/communism thing. Is socialism equal to communism? And should we be fearing the worst if our health care system becomes more socialized?

Stick with me, kids; I'll clear it up.

First, let's start with the theoretical definitions. These are very academic, but it's important to keep in mind that the practical application of these definitions can be quite different, which I'll get to further below.

Socialism refers to any one of various theories of economic organization advocating public or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a more egalitarian method of compensation.

Communism (from Latin: communis = "common") refers to a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. In political science, however, the term "Communism", usually spelled with the capital letter C is often used to refer to the Communist states, a form of government in which the state operates under a one-party system and declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism or a derivative thereof, even if the party does not actually claim that it has already reached communism.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you already: 'Oh my goodness, Kanuk--those sound exactly the same!' Well, don't start airing out the bomb shelter yet.

Although both definitions seem similar, socialism basically focuses on sharing some resources for the good of the community, whereas communism promotes the complete sharing of wealth, property and supplies, nearly always under the rule of a single government entity (which can be defined as a dictatorship. This is because unlike socialism, communism in its pure form is actually unworkable). In theory, sure, a socialist state could become communist--though interestingly enough, actual communist states (China, former USSR, North Korea, etc.) considered themselves socialist countries. A list of true socialist countries can be found here. The label is often given based on the wording of the county's constitution, which usually includes the word socialist.

Please note that nowhere on this list do we see Canada, France or the Scandinavian countries (most of these countries would be labeled as social democratic). Even though I called the True North Strong and Free socialist as a joke, it really isn't.

I mentioned it above in reference to the U.S., but it's important enough to say it again: All industrialized countries have borrowed some ideas from socialism. Some have borrowed more (Sweden) while others have borrowed less (America). Yet, none of these industrialized countries--not even those funky Swedes--have fallen into communism or anarchy. And believe me, it's not going to happen anytime soon.

Take Canada as an example (and hey, I love talking Canada as an example. Canada rocks). Canada has many more social programs than the U.S. These include public medical insurance (obviously), more generous unemployment benefits, welfare and social security programs, as well as--at least for some provinces--exclusively public insurance for motor vehicle collisions, which is a concept similar to universal health care. And despite all these social programs, my fellow Canucks have as many individual rights as my fellow Americans. Hell, if you include same-sex marriages and the fact that it's legal for women to wander around topless in Ontario, we have more! We have our very own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guys. And in Canada, we have the same freedom to choose the medical doctors we want.

Canada's political system includes socialist political parties (the New Democratic Party, or NDP, is always a major contender in provincial or federal elections) and even communist ones too. And you know what? Bob Rae, a New Democrat, was Premier of Ontario--that's like a Governor, y'all--from 1990 to 1995. Believe me, Ontario isn't any closer to the brink of Stalin-esque tyranny and economic collapse than the rest of Canada, much as Alberta might think so.

As a side note, most countries that have borrowed from socialism have benefited from it. I've already talked about this in my earlier posts about the good stuff that came with the introduction of the Universal health care system in Canada, which reduced the socioeconomic disparities of the previous system. Even in the U.S., the passage of the 'War on Poverty' legislation by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 greatly reduced the poverty rate among the elderly, especially following the introduction of the Medicare program as discussed here and here, despite its flaws. I could provide other examples of successful programs in the U.S, Canada and elsewhere, but this is already long enough; I'll do it some other time.

So there you go. In short, even when countries have strong socialist influences, unless you're going to have a coup and/or revolution (an unlikely scenario among the G8 countries), no one needs to haul out the English-to-Russian dictionary. And if the easy-going Canucks can reject communism, I'm sure Americans can do the same, even if a few social programs are implemented over the next few years. In other words, not having to pay for Jimmy's broken arm doesn't mean the government will tell him he has to be a street-sweeper by the time he graduates from high school. Seriously, don't worry about it.

I'm still not holding my breath about health care reform, though.

 (Thanks to Taste_is_Sweet and Rat4Cat for their input)