Does Barack Obama Support Socialized Medicine?

That's the title of a recent report by Michael F. Cannon of the Libertarian Cato Institute. In his report, Cannon attempts to answer the question of whether or not Senator Obama's health care proposal can be characterized as "socialized medicine."

Cannon notes that several respected media organizations and think tanks have asked this question before and all have said the answer was no. Still, Cannon says those efforts "...leave much to be desired" and "...are little more than attempts to convince the public that policies generally considered socialist really aren't."

Cannon begins his report by offering the following definition of socialized medicine: "Socialized medicine exists to the extent that government controls medical resources and socializes the costs." What's important, Cannon argues, is not whether a particular resource is public or private, but who controls the resource. "By that definition," Cannon says, "America's health sector is already more than half socialized, and Obama's health care plan would socialize medicine even further."

In discussing Obama's proposal for a National Health Insurance Exchange, Cannon writes, "Through the Exchange, Obama would have the federal government regulate the content and price of all health insurance plans offered in the United States. Obama would require employers to contribute to the cost of their employees' health insurance or pay a tax. He would require all parents to obtain health insurance for their children. And he would expand existing government health insurance programs such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program."

Despite a lack of "rigorous projections" on the Obama health plan, Cannon says, "...the Lewin Group estimates that a similar plan would enroll 40 million people in a new government insurance program, which would be akin to doubling the Medicare rolls." The Lewin Group goes further, Cannon says, projecting the plan would result in a rise in federal spending in excess of $140 billion annually.

Cannon even uses Obama's own words to demonstrate the ultimate goal. Cannon writes that in 2003, Obama said "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care plan." And then in August of this year, Cannon says, Obama answered a town hall question by saying, "If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system."

"Reasonable people can disagree," Cannon writes, "over whether Obama's health plan would be good or bad. But to suggest that it is not a step toward socialized medicine is absurd."