This week, following his diagnosis as COVID-infected, President Trump showed the nation what he thinks of “socialized medicine.” He apparently trusts it with his life. Needing hospitalization, President Trump chose to go to a government-run hospital rather than one of a large number of private institutions in the Washington, DC area. After all, it’s not like he doesn’t have the money to go wherever he wants.

It’s difficult to reconcile the image of Trump walking in to get “government health care” with his attempts during the first presidential debate to denigrate “socialized medicine.” To be clear, Trump was using that term as a slur against Joe Biden. Biden’s proposal to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not “socialized medicine.” The Democratic nominee has been more than clear both in the general election and the primary season that his program will maintain the largely private health care system, including the private health insurance companies, while increasing ACA subsidies and creating a public health insurance option.

In truth, there’s no widespread call for making all doctors and nurses employees of the federal government or for hospitals to be nationalized. Such a reform would give us something similar to Britain’s National Health Service. But progressives, and increasingly not so progressive voters, have largely coalesced around Medicare for All instead. Medicare for All is a form of universal health insurance where actual delivery of health care remains as it is now. It differs from Biden’s plan in that Medicare for All eliminates private insurance — but not the private provision of health care — along with all copayments, deductibles, and premiums.