Here’s one reason “socialized medicine” doesn’t scare the electorate much anymore:
Under the Affordable Care Act and its subsidies and with employer-sponsored coverage with employer contributions, paying insurance premiums isn’t as much of an issue for people as actually using their health insurance. It’s really, really expensive to use it when you have to spend thousands of dollars before it even kicks in.
Now that the country has seen that access to insurance was something the government could actually effectively address, it’ll be far less of a leap to accepting government’s potential larger role in providing not just coverage, but actual care.