Legal Issue
Sarah Freymann Fontenot, BSN, JD, CSPA,
is a former nurse and practicing attorney who
specializes in explaining how health care is
changing and what those changes mean for
healthcare providers as well as patients. She
has taught health law at Trinity University
since 1997 and has been a frequent speaker for
numerous national provider groups, including
TMA and TMLT, for the last two decades.
Her twice-monthly newsletter “Fontenotes”
provides concise information about our
healthcare system and currently reaches 25,000 readers. Her website can be
accessed at SarahFontenot.com.
DALLAS | HOUSTON | WACO
May 2019 Dallas Medical Journal 25
nurses and other healthcare professionals are government
employees; from birth to death every patient encounter is
with the government.
In other words, socialized medicine starts with a singlepayer
as we just discussed, but it adds the other side of the
coin—the distribution of the medical care itself.
Warnings of “Socialized Medicine” are rampant in the
debates surrounding various current “Medicare for All”
proposals,7 were equally strident during the passage of the
ACA,8 and resonate back to advertisements against Medicare
by Ronald Reagan in the mid-1960s.9
All three times the pundits were incorrect. Medicare did
not result in a government takeover of providers in 1965,
Obamacare did not shut down hospitals or require physicians
to give up their private practices, and none of the “Medicare
For All” proposals currently floating about—not even the
most extreme—will result in a different healthcare delivery
structure.10
To call any of these “Socialized Medicine” is just wrong. It
is not a correct use of the term.
For accurate examples of Socialized Medicine, think
England and the United Kingdom, or our very own VA
system.
Conclusion
I hope this serves as a quick glossary of words we will all
hear incessantly through this election cycle. The concepts are
very detailed and knotty; the terms are not. DMJ
REFERENCES
1. https://www.livestrong.com/article/30692-pros-cons-universalhealth/
2. https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-universal-health-caredefinition
pros-and-cons.html
3. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-obamacaremedicare
20140326-story.html
4. https://truecostblog.com/2009/08/09/countries-with-universalhealthcare
by-date/
5. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/health_
reform_for_beginners_th_1.html
6. https://www.healthinsurance.org/glossary/socialized-medicine/
7. http://sarahfontenot.com/beyond-the-slogan-medicare-for-all/
8. https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/bill-oreilly-obamacare-andsocialism
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Speaks_Out_Against_
Socialized_Medicine
10. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/428232-progressivespulling
a-bait-and-switch-with-medicare-for-all
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