Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan

[SirKodiak]

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4337

Part of the introduction:
To the Congress of the United States:

One of the most cherished goals of our democracy is to assure every American an equal opportunity to lead a full and productive life.

In the last quarter century, we have made remarkable progress toward that goal, opening the doors to millions of our fellow countrymen who were seeking equal opportunities in education, jobs and voting.

Now it is time that we move forward again in still another critical area: health care.

Without adequate health care, no one can make full use of his or her talents and opportunities. It is thus just as important that economic, racial and social barriers not stand in the way of good health care as it is to eliminate those barriers to a good education and a good job.

Three years ago, I proposed a major health insurance program to the Congress, seeking to guarantee adequate financing of health care on a nationwide basis. That proposal generated widespread discussion and useful debate. But no legislation reached my desk.

Today the need is even more pressing because of the higher costs of medical care. Efforts to control medical costs under the New Economic Policy have been Inept with encouraging success, sharply reducing the rate of inflation for health care. Nevertheless, the overall cost of health care has still risen by more than 20 percent in the last two and one-half years, so that more and more Americans face staggering bills when they receive medical help today

[Rongar]

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4337

Part of the introduction:

That proved to be a most interesting site, Sir K...see, Guys, Nixon wasn't all bad...

[SirKodiak]

It is a shame, too. For the same reason Nixon was the 'perfect' president to open relationships with China, he was the right one to do this as well.

[dickay]

was he smarter than Reagan;

http://www.lonelyconservative.com/2009/08/15/ronald-reagans-warning-about-socialized-medicine-video-and-complete-transcript/comment-page-1/


My name is Ronald Reagan. I have been asked to talk on the several subjects that have to do with the problems of the day. . . .

Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

There are many ways in which our government has invaded the precincts of private citizens, the method of earning a living. Our government is in business to the extent over owning more than 19,000 businesses covering 47 different lines of activity. This amounts to a fifth of the total industrial capacity of the United States.

But at the moment I’d like to talk about another way. Because this threat is with us and at the moment is more imminent.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.

Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

So, with the American people on record as not wanting socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand introduced the Ferrand Bill. This was the idea that all people of social security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance. Now this would not only be our senior citizens, this would be the dependents and those who are disabled, this would be young people if they are dependents of someone eligible for Social Security.

Now, Congressman Ferrand brought the program out on that idea of just for that group of people. But Congressman Ferrand was subscribing to this foot in the door philosophy, because he said “if we can only break through and get our foot inside the door, then we can expand the program after that.”

Walter Ruther said “It’s no secret that the United Automobile Workers is officially on record as backing a program of national health insurance.” And by national health insurance, he meant socialized medicine for every American. Well, let’s see what the socialists themselves have to say about it.

They say: “Once the Ferrrand bill is passed, this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicince. Capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population.’ Well, we can’t say we haven’t been warned.

Now, Congressman Ferrand is no longer a congressman of the United States government. He has been replaced, not in his particular assignment, but in his backing of such a bill, by Congressman King of California. It is presented in the idea of a great emergency that millions of our senior citizens are unable to provide needed medical care. But this ignores the fact that in the last decade a hundred and twenty seven million of our citiizens in just ten years, have come under the protection of some form of privately owned medical or hospital insurance.

Now the advocates of this bill, when you try to oppose it, challenge you on an emotional basis. They say “What would you do, throw these poor old people out to die with no medical attention?” That’s ridiculous and of course no one’s has advocated it. As a matter of fact, in the last session of Congress a bill was adopted known as the Kerr-Mills Bill. Now without even allowing this bill to be tried, to see if it works, they have introduced this King Bill which is really the Ferrand Bill.

What is the Kerr-Mills Bill? It is a frank recognition of the medical need or problem of the senior citizens that I have mentioned. And it is provided from the federal government money to the states and the local communities that can be used at the discretion of the state to help those people who need it. Now what reason could the other people have for backing a bill which says “we insist on compulsory health insurance for senior citizens on the basis of age alone; regardless of whether they’re worth millions of dollars, whether they have an income, whether they’re protected by their own insurance, whether they have savings.”

I think we can be excused for believing that as ex-c0ngressman Ferrand said, this was simply an excuse to bring about what they wanted all the time – socialized medicine.

James Madison in 1788, speaking to the Virginia Convention said: “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations. ”

They want to attach this bill to Social Security. And they say here is a great insurance program now instituted, now working.

Let’s take a look at social security itself. Again, very few of us disagree with the original premise that there should be some form of saving that would keep destitution from following unemployment by reason of death, disability or old age. And to this end Social Security was adopted. But it was never intended to supplant private savings, private insurance, pension programs of unions and industries.

Now in our country under our free enterprise system, we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to the other.

But let’s also look from the other side, at the freedom the doctor loses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being.

I know how I’d feel, if you my fellow citizens decided that to be an actor, I had to become a government employee and work in a national theater. Take it into your own occupation or that of your husband, all of us can see what happens – once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it is a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay and pretty soon your son won’t decide when he’s in school, where he will go or what they will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell them where he will go to work and what he will do.

In this country of ours, took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in world’s history. The only true revolution. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here for the first time in all the thousands of years of man’s relation to man, a little group of the men, the founding fathers - for the first time – established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the God given right and ability to determine our own destiny.

This freedom was built into our government with safeguards. We talk democracy today. And strangely we let democracy begin to assume the aspect of majority rule is all that is needed. Well, majority rule is a fine aspect of democracy, provided there are guarantees written in to our government concerning the rights of the individual and of the minorities.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can write to our congressmen and our senators. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. And at the moment, the key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine.

In Washington today, 40,000 letters, less than a hundred per congressman, are evidence of a trend in public thinking.



continued on next post

[dickay]

continued


Representative Halleck of Indiana has said, “When the American people want something from Congress, regardless of its political complexion, if they make their wants known, Congress does what the people want.”

So write, and if your this man writes back to you and tells you that he too is for free enterprise, that we have these great services and so forth, that must be performed by government, don’t let him get away with it. Show that you have not been convinced. Write a letter right back and tell him that you believe in government economy and fiscal responsibility; that you know governments don’t tax to get the money the need; governments will always find a need for the money they get and that you demand the continuation of our traditional free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen even we believe that he is on our side to begin with. Write to strengthen his hand. Give him the ability to stand before his colleagues in Congress and say “I have heard from my constituents and this is what they want.”

Write those letters now; call your friends and tell them to write them. If you don’t, this program I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. Until, one day, as Normal Thomas said we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

[oriole^]

The contrast in approaches is interesting, and very illustrative - particularly in that segment that's bolded in Reagan's address. When Nixon talks about health care, he brings up specific dollar amounts for services, percentage of American citizens who don't have health care, specific things that would and should be covered, and so forth. Reagan swings it straight into fear-mongering about socialism from the second graf, and incidentally, by the time he's in the bolded part, talks about how we're the greatest in the world and our system is best without any reasons or facts to back it up. In the end, there's nothing to discuss and no compromises to be made - because nothing is proposed. (Though admittedly, they were written on different premises.)

It's pretty clear where the modern Republican Party takes its cues from.

[dickay]

The contrast in approaches is interesting, and very illustrative - particularly in that segment that's bolded in Reagan's address. When Nixon talks about health care, he brings up specific dollar amounts for services, percentage of American citizens who don't have health care, specific things that would and should be covered, and so forth. Reagan swings it straight into fear-mongering about socialism from the second graf, and incidentally, by the time he's in the bolded part, talks about how we're the greatest in the world and our system is best without any reasons or facts to back it up. In the end, there's nothing to discuss and no compromises to be made - because nothing is proposed. (Though admittedly, they were written on different premises.)

It's pretty clear where the modern Republican Party takes its cues from.

while i really posted it because 1) i like playing devils advocate and 2) i find it interesting that Reagan predicted that medicare would be "the foot in" for nationalized healthcare....

i do have one issue with what you have stated;

I hate how whenever a 'republican' speaks an opinion against a liberal idea its immediately written off as fear mongering. Isn't the NEED for nationalized health care "fear mongering" in itself? they use unquestionbly tainted statistics when trying to 'inform' us of how many are uninsured thus the great need.

I suppose to a liberal, "of course its not fear mongering"....but in every escense possible it is pretty much the same thing that republicans are criticsed for fear mongering about all the time.

So....just to clarify my position i'm for any reform that helps reign in the growing healthcare costs in America yet allows our coverages to remain unchanged or improved. I do think costs have gotten out of control. However;

1. This administration or anybody really has not yet proved to me how in fact any of their proposals would lower costs of healthcare other than by saying "we'll create competition".

2. I have real issues of the proponents of this legislation when they start off with opening statements with complete fabrications about the "uninsured". Fact is a large percentage of those people could easily be "insured" if they chose to make it a priority. Another large percentage of those people are in between jobs for a small period and were uninsured during that period and are used in their stats. Another large percentage of those are already eligible in many state programs yet don't sign up for it.

So....why is it that the same people who say we should and could EASILY pay more taxes if we prioritized and didn't waste so much on uneccesary things think that those who CHOOSE to live without healthcare coverage should be covered by the Govt?

As far as teh "uninsured" I think its real simple.

1. Provide additional funding to the states and mandate that all states have healthcare coverage for those making under XXX amount of dollars. Therefore we the working class are providing coverage for a much mcuh smaller percentage of Americans.

2. Anyone making over XXX amount of dollars can afford to get coverage on their own. I'm not a proponent of making it mandatory but auto insurance is...if the people want that fine. If not, fine IMO. If some CHOOSE not to get health insurance....and get sick, the state would provide coverages and seize all their assets. That was THEIR CHOICE! If I gamble on the stock market and lose, will the govt. bail me out of that choice?

OK...that covers the "uninsured" aspect. Simple, easy and something we are already doing in most states if not all, however we can and probably should raise the earning levels for eligibility. Now as for the rising costs of healthcare...lets now examine that issue and address it separately. Start with malpractice reform.