From Media Matters: Rush Limbaugh claimed during his February 27 morning radio update that “[t]he Obama budget … funds the relentless drive toward socialized medicine” — a statement that is neither accurate nor original. In fact, as the Urban Institute wrote in an April 2008 analysis, “socialized medicine involves government financing and direct provision of health care services,” and therefore, progressive health-care reform proposals do not “fit this description.” The analysis also noted: “Similar rhetoric was used to defeat national health care reform proposals in the 1990s and, with less success, to argue against the creation of Medicare in the 1960s.” Indeed, a Media Matters for America analysis found that dating as far back as the 1930s — with respect to at least 16 different reform initiatives — conservatives have attempted to smear those proposals by calling them “socialized medicine” or a step toward that inevitable result.

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