If Medicaid and Medicare were "socialist" in any way whatsoever, we would have Medicaid for All for a fraction of the cost. These programs are so expensive beca

If Medicaid and Medicare were "socialist" in any way whatsoever, we would have Medicaid for All for a fraction of the cost. These programs are so expensive because the "healthcare" system in this country is designed to funnel money into the oligarchs' pockets. It is a capitalist scam that presents the single greatest barrier to American entrepreneurship. The UK NHS is a socialized healthcare system. The profit motive is not allowed to corrupt any part of the system. Pharmaceutical prices are strictly controlled (none of this $26k/year Alzheimer's drug nonsense). It is fully nationalized. Nationalizing an entire industry in peacetime is often (but not always) associated with socialism. Even Canada's single payer system is not socialist in any sense of the word. It's just a government-run insurance plan. There are many multi-payer insurance systems in the world that perform far better than ours. Single-payer is not a panacea without price controls. Price controls are somewhat socialist. Funnily enough, the last US president to enact price controls was Richard Nixon, known friend of Marxists across the globe /s. There's nothing socialist whatsoever about Social Security. It does not redistribute wealth. The tax is infamously capped at the first ~$130k of income you make per year. Any income above the cap is untaxed by Social Security. Your benefits are proportional to what you paid into it. Social Security is definitely not "wealth distribution." It is an income tax. It's income distribution if anything, but that's still pretty ghoulish framing for a stipend for retired folks that barely keeps them out of poverty. > I've seen estimates that in the most progressive states, welfare benefits can amount to as much as $42,000 a year for a small family. No citations, just some half-remembered statistic from a right-wing propaganda outlet that conveniently adds up to the weed number. Very believable. Very representative of the average person's lived experiences. I cannot overstate how pathetic you have to be, in order to be resentful about welfare benefits while making a tech worker's salary.