[angkor]

I confess I haven’t following this issue for “three decades” or even three months, but it seems somewhat more than “irrelevant” to call it what it is.

I’m curious why you would think otherwise.

[VRWCmember]

I’m curious why you would think otherwise.

Because when a term is in such common usage for that length of time, getting hung up over semantics and the use of the word socialist vs socialized is counter-productive. I would bet that if you were to review Ronald Reagan's speeches on the issue of private versus nationalized medical insurance you would find he used the term "socialized medicine" to refer to the idea of national/socialist health care for the simple reason that it was the conventional, established, common usage term for such a program.

[MozarkDawg]

If you wish to be more precise in your terminology, you would not use socialist (noun) but socialistic (adjective), as a socialist is one who advocates socialism or is a member (capital S) of the party.

My dictionary defines socialized thus:

so·cial·ize (sō'shə-līz')
v. so·cial·ized, so·cial·iz·ing, so·cial·iz·es
v. tr.

1. To place under government or group ownership or control.

Socialized medicine is the proper form, not socialist(ic) medicine.