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As the debate over health care reform heats up this summer, I'm in grave danger of tearing my hair directly out of my head if I hear the word "socialism" one more time. Look, every time the word "socialism" crops up, your internal lie detector should sound a code red.

People who use the word "socialism" to describe anything that the Democrats are proposing with regards to health care either don't know what the word "socialism" means, or are cynically exploiting the former group's ignorance. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has made his contempt for the average intelligence of his own voting base clear. When an audience member asked Steele during a recent speech if Obama's health care plan was socialism, Steele simply answered, "Yes. Next question."

It's hard to decide what's more insulting -- that Steele thinks it's appropriate to lie so blatantly, or that he thinks that the public is too stupid to notice that he's lying. Unfortunately, a whole lot of people out there really do think that we're one health-care-reform bill away from living under a communist dictatorship.

Charges of "socialism" are popular with conservatives trying to find easy, if mindless, ways to denounce universal health care. In part, it's because it's hard to know how to respond. Do you start asking people what they think socialism is and try to assess what they think the dangers of it are, or do you just deny that any of the potential bills have any relationship to this so-called socialism? Both strategies have their pluses and minuses.

Click here to read Amanda's take on the "Socialist Scourge" after the jump.

Some tactics for dealing with the question of socialism:

1) Define socialism and then discover what's so wrong with it. Most people fling the word socialism around to describe a system much like that in Western Europe -- nations that have a strong social safety net and a lot of labor protection. Socialism is used to describe England's National Health Services, France's 35-hour work week (with five weeks paid vacation), or the tuition-free universities in countries like Germany. But the existence of these benefits doesn't make Europe any more socialist than the United States.

Why not? Well, just like the U.S., most European countries have an economic mix where some parts of the economy are run by the state and some are left to private enterprise, and some are a a bit of both. The U.S., in fact, has "socialized" education through high school, "socialized" highway systems, and even "socialized" fire departments. Most people screaming "socialism" don't have a problem with free highways or public schools, making them socialists in their own right. And yet, capitalism hasn't gone away. Spending two or three minutes in Paris or London, where advertising is as prevalent as it is in New York City or L.A. would confirm this to any reasonable person.

2) Point out that there's nothing "socialist" about the proposed health-care reform. The cry of "socialism" is there to hoodwink you into thinking that the Democrats are trying to move us to a single-payer system, such as the one they have in Great Britain, where the government provides your health care for free, and everyone's on the same plan. This would be great from my point of view, but sadly, it's not what they're actually proposing.

Instead, it's a hodge-podge of reforms designed to make sure more people can buy private insurance, mainly by limiting what an insurance company can dump you for. There's also a good chance we'll be allowed to buy a publicly owned insurance similar to Medicaid, which should warm the hearts of anyone who believes that we should have more choice. Republicans trying to shut down this option are simply removing a choice from your plate and forcing you to go with private if you don't want it. But it's completely silly to pretend that a plan centered around making sure you can keep your private insurance is "socialist."

A quick perusal of the RNC's Web site opposing universal health care shows that they fully intend to fight back through disinformation and outright lies. That includes the banner picture showing a line out the door of the emergency room. Obviously, the intent is to make you think that if everyone is insured, they'll all go to emergency rooms and clog up the waiting room ... instead of what? Does the RNC actually think that people without insurance will stay at home and die instead of going to the E.R.?

In truth, universal health care would do a lot to cut down on waiting times in the E.R. And a lot of people who typically use the E.R. as primary health care would be able to go to a regular doctor before their situations became dire if they had insurance. If waiting times for hospital treatment are your concern, then you should be a supporter of universal health care. And if the opponents of health care are being deceitful about that, what else are they being less that truthful about?

Amanda Marcotte is the author of "It's a Jungle Out There" and writes about politics daily at Pandagon.net.