Harvard poll examines American's views on "socialized medicine"
Mollie Makover
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The phrase "socialized medicine" is no longer as distasteful as it once was, but people are still split along party lines as to if it's a good idea for the country, according to a poll conducted by the Harvard Opinion Research Program at the Harvard School of Public Health and Harris Interactive last month.
About 70 percent of Democrats said the country would be better off under socialized medicine, while roughly the same percentage of Republicans said it would make things worse.
"There's a huge polarization between Republicans and Democrats about the term socialized medicine and health care in America. When issues are this polarized it's hard to find a significant midpoint for compromise," said Robert J. Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Forty-three percent of independent voters were in favor of socialized medicine, while 39 percent were opposed, according to the poll of 1,030 voters conducted in February of this year.
The term "socialized medicine" has been used in health care reform debates since 1948.
"We were interested to see what Americans thought 60 years after it was first used about the issue," said Blendon.
The poll reports that the majority of people know what socialized medicine means.
Seventy percent said they understood the phrase "very well" or "somewhat well" and believe that it means, "the government makes sure everyone has health insurance."
Of that 70 percent, 45 percent said socialized medicine would make the country better, while 39 percent said it would make things worse.
Age was found to be another factor in people's opinions about socialized medicine.
People under the age 34 were more likely to view socialized medicine positively. Fifty-five percent said they believed it would help the country, while about 70 percent of people age 65 and over were opposed.
"Socialized is added to the word medicine for a reason and that's to scare up the images of everyone getting exactly the same and exactly the same being not very much," said Dr. Lee Hargraves, associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
The Harvard poll tested how this traditionally controversial phrase is interpreted by Americans," he said.
John McDonough, executive director of Health Care For All said he thinks the term socialized medicine is polarizing and unhelpful. "It divides rather than unites people around solutions," he said.
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