Health Care Reform as ‘‘Socialized Medicine’’: The Formative Years of a Political Myth Jeff St. Onge This essay traces the rhetorical history of ‘‘socialized medicine,’’ offering an explanation for, and critique of, its pervasiveness in contemporary health care debates. My analysis focuses on the well-organized and well-financed lobbying effort by the American Medical Association aimed at defeating reforms during the New Deal era. I focus on how the per- sistence of ‘‘socialized medicine’’ as a naturalized term in contemporary discourse func- tions to reinforce a mythic perspective of U.S. democracy as primarily individualistic and resistant to programs aimed at benefiting the larger community. Ultimately, the essay seeks to facilitate critical reflection on this problematic term for the sake of enriching democratic practice in the present. Keywords: Democracy; Health Care; Rhetoric; Myth The term ‘‘socialized medicine’’ was a problematic feature of recent debates about the Affordable Care Act, a piece of legislation designed to alleviate the price of health care through increased market competition. Frank Llewellyn, the National Director of the Democratic Socialists of America, notes the inaccuracy of the charge, stating that President Obama is ‘‘not any kind of socialist at all,’’ and is instead ‘‘a market guy’’ who is trying to ‘‘save capitalism from itself’’ (qtd. in ‘‘Top U.S. Socialist’’). While the Affordable Care Act would certainly alter the government’s role in health care, it Jeff St. Onge is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Defiance College. An early draft of this article was presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the National Communication Association. The author is grateful to the editor and to the anonymous reviewers who helped shape this paper into a final product. Special thanks to Robert L. Ivie for his continued guidance, and to the many others at Indiana University who helped shape my thinking on this article. Thanks also to Jennifer Moore for her comments and support in the revision process. Correspondence to: Jeff St. Onge, Department of Communication Studies, Defiance College, Defiance, OH 43512, USA. E-mail: Jstonge@defiance.edu Western Journal of Communication Vol. 79, No. 3, May–June 2015, pp. 348–366 ISSN 1057-0314 (print)/ISSN 1745-1027 (online) # 2015 Western States Communication Association DOI: 10.1080/10570314.2015.1041650