Somehow you and others on this thread seem to think that providing universal access to healthcare for all Americans would lead to "socialism".
Socialism isn't a binary thing where you have total socialism or no socialism. We have socialist aspects in our economy now. Any of the proposals on the table for universal health care would increase the extent of socialism.
David Cameron might have said it isn't a dream of socialism, and perhaps implied it wasn't socialism, but it is. The system in the UK is particularly socialist, because its not just government paid health care but government provided health care. In that sense the UK's system is more unique among wealthy countries than our system is.
Now socialism isn't automatically in every single case bad. I don't look at something, and say "that's socialism so it is impossible that it could be good in any way". But lacking strong information to the contrary that's the safer way to bet than the opposite.
It seems to me like this is such pure and simple logic spoken by someone with very strong credentials in the advocacy of the free market.
What am I missing?
Well for one thing I'm not so sure that he has "strong credentials in the advocacy of the free market".
"Cameron describes himself as a "modern compassionate conservative" and has said that he is "fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster".[1] He has stated that he is "certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite."[2] He has also claimed to be a "liberal Conservative", and "not a deeply ideological person."[3] Cameron has stated that he does not intend to oppose the government as a matter of course, and will offer his support in areas of agreement. He also wants to move the Conservatives' focus away from purely fiscal matters, saying "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB - general well-being". [4] There have been claims that he described himself to journalists at a dinner during the leadership contest as the "heir to Blair".[5]
He and others in the "Notting Hill set" have sought to focus on issues such as the environment, work-life balance and international development -- issues not seen as priorities for the post-Thatcher Conservative party.[6] In a speech to the Conservative annual conference in October 2006, he identified the concept of "social responsibility" as the essence of his political philosophy.[7]
Some political commentators have suggested that his style is influenced by the Swedish Moderate Party leader and current Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, who advocates moving to the centre and supporting traditionally centre-left issues[8] and in fact, Reinfeldt himself has been called the "Swedish David Cameron".[9]"
en.wikipedia.org
How can you disagree with this position?
Well for starters because as a matter of simple fact its wrong. The UK has a socialist health care system, so any position that "its not socialism" is wrong.
That would be true even if socialism (either in general, or in this specific area) was a very good idea. |
