Goodfriend's observation is consistent with a March Media Matters for America report in which we documented that

dating as far back as the 1930s -- with respect to at least 16 different reform initiatives -- conservatives have attempted to smear those proposals by calling them “socialized medicine” or a step toward that inevitable result.

These reform efforts include President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's consideration of government health insurance when crafting the 1935 Social Security bill; President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act establishing Medicare; President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton's health-care initiative in 1993 and 1994; the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997, as well as its 2007 reauthorization and 2009 expansion; Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's health-care proposals during the 2008 presidential campaign; health information technology provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; and health-care provisions included in President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget blueprint.

Conservatives will undoubtedly persist in using the rhetoric of “socialized medicine” as the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress move forward with health-care reform. As The New York Times' Mark Leibovich reported in a February 28 Week in Review piece headlined " 'Socialism!' Boo, Hiss, Repeat," conservative commentator and Conservative Political Action Conference “celebrity” Bay Buchanan said that " '[s]ocialized medicine' was a great argument for us" in defeating the Clintons' health-care reform effort. Leibovich added that Buchanan “not[ed] that the term will surely gain even more of a hold when the Obama administration unveils its own health care proposal, probably sometime this year” [emphasis added].