What Medicare Program Was Reagan Referring to When He Said There You Go Again
| Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Confronting Socialized Medicine | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Live anthology (spoken word) by Ronald Reagan | |
| Released | 1961 |
| Genre | Spoken give-and-take |
| Length | 10:06 |
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine is a 1961 LP featuring the actor Ronald Reagan. In this more than ten-minute recording, Reagan "criticized Social Security for supplanting private savings and warned that subsidized medicine would curtail Americans' liberty" and that "pretty before long your son won't decide when he's in schoolhouse, where he will go or what he volition practise for a living. He volition wait for the regime to tell him."[one] Roger Lowenstein chosen the LP part of a "stealth program" conducted by the American Medical Association (see Operation Coffee Cup).[one]
Summary [edit]
Reagan opens by maxim that in 1927 socialist Norman Thomas said that the American people would never vote for socialism, but "under the proper name of liberalism the American people would prefer every fragment of the socialist program." Snopes.com calls this attribution probably false, arguing that "no one has always been able to plough up a source".
Reagan says that "Government has invaded the free precincts of private citizens," stating that the U.Due south. government owns "ane/5 of the total industrial capacity of the United States." Reagan says "I of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by fashion of medicine. It'southward very like shooting fish in a barrel to disguise a medical programme every bit a humanitarian projection, almost people are a lilliputian reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who peradventure can't afford it." Reagan cites the failure of president Harry S. Truman's national health insurance proposal as evidence of the American people's rejection of socialized medicine.
Reagan describes Representative Aime Forand as having introduced a bill which would institute "compulsory health insurance" for all people of social security age. Forand is quoted every bit having said, "If we tin can only intermission through and become our foot within the door, then we can extend the program afterwards that." Forand is likened to labor union leader Walter Reuther, who is quoted equally having said, "Information technology's no hush-hush that the United Machine Workers is officially on tape of bankroll a program of national wellness insurance." The Forand nib is described as being praised by socialists: "They say one time the Forand neb is passed this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population. Now nosotros tin can't say we haven't been warned."
Reagan describes Representative Cecil R. King of California as the successor to Congressman Forand in his back up for a bill that would provide senior citizens with medical care. (The 1962 Male monarch-Anderson bill is frequently described as a precursor to the Social Security Human activity of 1965, which established Medicare.) Reagan cites the expansion of private wellness insurance and the passage of the 1960 Kerr-Mills Human activity, which provided federal funds to states to encompass the "medically needy," as evidence that Rex's legislation is unnecessary. Reagan concludes that the new bill is "but an excuse to bring about what they wanted all the time: socialized medicine." Reagan warns confronting the danger of encroaching on the relationship between patients and doctors, and of an attack on doctors' freedoms.
Reagan encourages his listeners to join a letter-writing campaign to Congress with the message, "We do non want socialized medicine." Reagan quotes Representative Charles A. Halleck of Indiana equally having said, "When the American people wants something from Congress, regardless of its political complexion, if they make their wants known, Congress does what the people want." Reagan warns that if his listeners do not stop the proposed medical program, "backside it will come up other government programs that will invade every area of freedom every bit we have known information technology in this country until one day as Norman Thomas said we volition wake to find that we have socialism." Under this scenario, Reagan says, "We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children'due south children, what it once was like in America when men were free."
Criticism [edit]
In 1966 Governor Pat Brown, campaigning for re-election against Reagan, said of Reagan's speech communication almost socialized medicine, that Reagan was "an enemy of social progress," who had "hired" out to the American Medical Association.[three] In response, Reagan accused him of "pure demagoguery" in suggesting that California'southward elderly had reason to fear a Reagan victory in the race for governor.[4]
In 1980 President Jimmy Carter, campaigning for re-election against Reagan, told crowds that: "Equally a traveling salesman for the American Medical Association campaign against Medicare, [Reagan] sowed the fear that Medicare would mean socialism and that it would lead to the devastation of our freedom." When the bailiwick arose in a televised fence in belatedly October, Reagan responded: "When I opposed Medicare, there was another piece of legislation coming together the same problem earlier Congress. I happened to favor the other piece of legislation and thought it would be better for the senior citizens. ... I was not opposing the principle of providing care for them..." Carter'southward campaign accused Reagan of "rewriting history", proverb that there was no such alternative legislation.[v]
References [edit]
- ^ a b Roger Lowenstein (2005-01-xvi). "A Question of Numbers". The New York Times.
- ^ "Brown Lashes Out at Reagan'southward Medicare Stand". Lodi News-Sentinel. UPI. Oct 17, 1966.
- ^ Richard Bergholz (October xviii, 1966). "Reagan Assails Brown's Charge on Old-Age Assist; He Accuses Governor of Demagoguery in Picturing Him every bit Foe of Programs". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ James P. Herzog (November 1, 1980). "Reagan Hit for Record on Medicare". The Pittsburgh Press.
External links [edit]
- Transcript of the anthology
- Transcript of the voice communication with audio
- Recording in its entirety from YouTube
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Speaks_Out_Against_Socialized_Medicine