The Church of Universal Coverage really, really, really wants you to think that the Democratic health care reforms moving through Congress are not “socialized medicine.” Last year, I wrote a paper about why they’re wrong. On June 25, I’ll be debating the issue at a Cato policy forum with the Urban Institute’s Stan Dorn.

Today, The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein lends his voice to the chorus of socialized-medicine deniers. Klein doesn’t add much to the discussion, except for this: Klein (correctly) observes, “Socialized medicine is a system in which the government owns the means of providing medicine” (emphasis his). Single-payer systems, like the U.S. Medicare program or France’s health care system, are not socialized medicine because “the payer does not own the doctors.”

That’s right. Under socialized medicine, the government owns the doctors. When human beings can be owned, we call that slavery. Klein was probably just trying to do what other Church of Universal Coverage faithful have done over the past few years: narrow the definition of socialized medicine to the point where it has no meaning at all. (Duh, Canada doesn’t have socialized medicine — they don’t put Canadian doctors in chains, do they??)

Instead, Klein was inadvertently helpful because he clarified that the reforms he supports, and the reforms before Congress, would give the government ownership over the human capital of doctors and other clinicians. Whether we’re talking about wages, insurers’ assets, medical facilities, medical products, or even clinicians’ labor, ownership is a bundle of rights. If health care reform gives government the right to exclude people from using those resources in forbidden ways (e.g., retainer medicine, balance-billing, pure fee-for-service, whatever), then government gains control over a larger share of each bundle of ownership rights. That equals more state ownership — of financial, physical, and even human capital — which is the very yardstick Klein uses to define socialized medicine.

If only all the socialists could be so helpful.