November 13, 2008 12:30PM 

# If Obama’s Plan Is Not Socialized Medicine, Then What Is? 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

Over at TPM Cafe, [Ed Kilgore](http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/) [writes](http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/13/the_anatomy_of_conservative_se/) about conservatives’ attitude toward president-elect Barack Obama:

> it’s hard to avoid the impression that they truly think this temperate man pursuing Clinton-style centrist policies is determined to enact “socialized medicine”

Not being a conservative myself, I’ll not try to explain any of the actually wacky things they might think about the man.

However, if conservatives believe that [Barack Obama is determined to enact socialized medicine](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9679), they are spot-on.

In fact, I challenge Kilgore (or anyone else) to read [this paper](https://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp108.pdf) and then argue that Obama does not support socialized medicine.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).