Bernie Sanders un-demonises "socialism" - Bill Mayer video

What is going on over there in the US with the word "socialism"? It's like they think the Russians are going to invade right after the word is spoken or something. The sky is gonna fall. Life in the US will end as they know it and everyone will become mindless drones not capable of individual thought. Some kind of walking dead socialist zombies. Bringing on an apocalypse of "mass genocide" :s

Such is the success of Reaganomics and the demonisation of the word. The one percent have been very successfully indeed.

Watch as Bernie Sanders explains exactly what the word means in terms of the programs he wants to bring in and that Americans want. 

He talks quite a bit about universal health care for example. It's been widely known for many years that health care in Australia is much more efficient and cheaper than the US system, and has better outcomes. People live longer, there's less child mortality, and other markers. Bill Clinton viewed the Australian experience as something worth studying and bringing to the US.

However the US has been unwilling to listen to other countries, stubbornly insisting that their system was the best and anything else was "socialised medicine". Clinton failed. As soon as the policy was linked to the word "socialism" it was doomed. Many in the US to this day consider that the US has the "best health care system in the world", but it's just not true.

Yet the Australian Medicare system works much better. People see the doctor and get preventative care, rather than ending up in emergency at crisis point. Medications are affordable and accessible to all. Insurance companies aren't there to gouge customers and prices aren't set by people trying to gouge the insurance companies. The system is much cheaper. Private insurance works in tandem with the public system. Those who can afford private insurance have the opportunity to do so. Many people (me included) can't and rely on the public system. But private doctors and specialists still work in the public system and see people on benefits like me and bulk bill the (free). It's not perfect but it works well.

But try telling that the many in the US. They seem to consider, again, that they're the exceptional ones and know better than any other country on earth. "Socialism" to them is part of some demonic other system outside of their exceptional realm.