r/politics • u/Hootinger • 16d ago

No Paywall Hakeem Jeffries says Medicare for all is not legislation he currently supports

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/hakeem-jeffries-says-medicare-for-all-is-not-legislation-he-currently-supports-268371525570
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u/WackyHumanSlop 16d ago

Australia is not socialist, try again

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u/Ok_Macaroon6934 16d ago edited 16d ago

It is absolutely democractic socialist.

It's not socialist, which is a different thing.

Democratic socialism is where the state steps in strongly to regulate harm and spend money to correct market failures.

Medicare (universal healthcare), PBS (universal pharmaceutical subsidisation), the NDIS (disability support), childcare subsidisation, compulsory superannuation, public education, fair work laws, etc, etc, etc, are all examples of Australian democratic socialist policies.

Other democratic socialist countries include Denmark, UK, Canada, Norway, Singapore, New Zealand and Japan.

"But democratic socialism has 'socialism' in its name". Sure, and duck tape isn't made of ducks, but it is tape.

I think it's safe to say that the USA is one of the only non-democratic socialist first world countries left in the world, and its middle class and disadvantaged people are declining into poverty, dying sooner and are having skyrocketing mental health issues. I wonder why?

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u/raptorlightning 15d ago

You're meaning to say social democratic. If you didn't mention workers owning their corporations or any other productive property, you're not talking about socialism.

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u/ChoiceContribution91 15d ago

That's communism

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u/raptorlightning 15d ago

Communism is a form of socialism. Wikipedia is right there.

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u/Ok_Macaroon6934 14d ago

That's right. Democratic Socialism, not socialist. Neither Australia nor the DSA nor Europe is socialist. They're Social Democracies/social democratic movements.

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u/raptorlightning 14d ago

Social Democratic is not the same as Democratic Socialist. You need to be clear what you mean.

Social Democratic is defined by still capitalist with a welfare state and human rights. Democratic socialist is defined by socialism that is democratic (kind of redundant, honestly).