Story By Liz Chen
First of all, what is socialized medicine?
It’s a single-payer, government-run system in which the government funds all medical and hospital care, employs health providers and runs hospitals and other health facilities. These funds are derived from general income taxation, but the amount of each person’s tax would depend on income level.
Republican Dan Bishop’s views are that, through socialized medicine, patients would not be able to keep their doctor. That is not true. Patients are still able to choose their primary care doctors.
Through a socialized medicine system, independent or private-payment practitioners are, however, discouraged.
Bishop claims that socialized medicine will “abolish private insurance and (cause) a huge tax increase on the middle class.”
Socialized medicine would increase taxes, but the increase would not necessarily be “huge.” Nor would it target just the middle class.
In any case, Democrat Dan McCready does not support socialized medicine or single-payer health care. His campaign has not received donations from any groups promoting socialized medicine, which means Bishop’s claim is, at the least, misleading.
Rather, this is an instance of Bishop grouping all Democrats together as far-leftists or socialists. McCready has reiterated that he is not a socialist — he’s a capitalist and a centrist. Read more about that here.
McCready, a business owner and who says health care is the chief issue in the 9th Congressional District, has repeatedly said he supports Medicare and will work to strengthen it if elected. He does not support Medicare for All. On his website, he says he will fight to “stop insurance companies from raising premiums year after year and kicking people off their coverage.”
In short, Bishop’s tweet connecting socialized medicine to McCready is false.
To learn more about
each candidate’s views on health care, click here.
