By Ariel Heart

The old saying “if you don’t learn from history you are doomed to repeat it” is true in the Health Care debate.  On Saturday October 10, 2009, there was a Health Care Forum in Colorado Springs thanks to Change the Works (http://www.coloradoforhealthcare.org ).  One particular audience member commented that she was old enough to remember the similar fervent battle against Medicare when it was first offered up in the 1960s. 

The long fight for Medicare began when the first bill was introduced in 1952 by President Harry S Truman.  President Truman wanted universal health care.  The American Medical Assoc was against. He had to retreat in the face of the AMA’s massive funding against the idea to covering the elderly and some disabled.

President Lyndon B Johnson signed Medicare (a single payer, social insurance program for persons 65 and older) into existence thirteen years later in July 1965  as part of the Social Security Act of 1965.  The very same Democratic party who claims to be the champion to save Medicare today, safeguarding it from some invisible threat, is the very same party that for thirteen years screamed Medicare was entitlement and socialism.  Interestingly the very same recorded message is playing today…is it live or Memorex?

This past summer, we saw volatile town hall meetings with some people vehemently insisting that the government keep their hands off their Medicare.  It would be knee-slapping funny, if it weren’t so tragic.  Have we forgotten our own history?  Have we forgotten the 60’s fear rhetoric spread that Medicare was socialism coming to destroy the very fabric of our democracy.

Ronald Reagan: “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and 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.”  Reagan gave this speech during his stint as host of General Electric Theater that required him to tour GE plants. These speeches to the workers were very often pro-corporation message – a company sponsored propaganda moment, if you will.  This particular speech is preserved on LP format with a cover titled “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine.”  Reagan was getting paid the modern equivalent of a million dollars for this job.  Not surprisingly, he soon changed his party affiliation to Republican. Even back then, big corporations were pulling out all the stops to fight people (elderly) from having affordable single payer health coverage.  Consider that Ronald Reagan is practically the patron saint of the GOP and bills have been submitted to have Reagan added to Mount Rushmore or his face on one of our dollar bills.

Another one of the old rhetoric arguments against Medicare was how it was Entitlement with a capitol E.  Sound familiar in our current health care debate?

Barry Goldwater: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” This was during his 1964 during his Presidential campaign.  This is the same party who claims to be saving our grandparent’s medicare from the current reform bill.  If it doesn’t make you pause and seriously question their trustworthiness, it should.

Well it has been forty-four years since socialized medicine in the form of Medicare was initiated in the US.  Were the doom and gloom predictions of freedom ending because of Medicare true?   If we are one smidgen closer to being a socialist country, it is a safe bet it was not due to Medicare.  What can be said about Medicare is that it has helped our elderly have a better chance at a quality of life for longer in their lives – and it was the right thing to do. 
We also have the argument that health care is not a right in this country.  This would make it a privilege.  Again we can go back in history when this was not an issue.  All the way back to 1944, in fact.  President Franklin D Roosevelt (D – New York), in his  January 11, 1944 message to Congress on the State of the Union, he made one of the most important declarations of the century – and perhaps even the next. 
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.
President Roosevelt died approximately fifteen months after giving this historic speech regarding a Second Bill of Rights.  FDR was not surprisingly disliked by greed driven profiteers for such radical thinking – and regulating Wall Street.  In 1934 the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings began hearings on a coup purportedly to overthrow President Roosevelt backed by wealthy financiers.  Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified of the coup but there was never enough proof to bring actual charges against the wealth financiers who wanted Roosevelt and his radical ways out of the White House. 

Consider Franklin D Roosevelt in light of the Health Care debate of today.  Who is really against people getting adequate or affordable coverage?  Follow the money.  Health Care is big business.  If you are a health insurance company you want more money coming in (premiums) with less and less going out (coverage).  That is “good” business also know as “the profit motive.”

Yet another argument against Health Care reform claims the current bill will institute care rationing.  October 10th the Denver Post reported how a Grand Junction infant was denied coverage because at four months old and nineteen pounds the baby can be classified overweight.  October 19th Denver news channels and even the Huffington Post reported how Aislin Bates was denied health insurance coverage because she was underweight.  And then there is the case of Chris Turner, a rape victim told rape is a pre-existing condition and such a rape victim could be denied coverage.  This is the true health care rationing being done in the name of “good business” and it has been going on for a long time.  Even though this may not be historical, it would have been negligent not to mention the recent history developing around us.

History teaches us valuable lessons from those that have gone through the experience before us.  Hopefully this quick snapshot of the health care debate in history has shed some light on the current situation.  History is truly repeating itself and with one of the most critical issues to our country.  Don’t let the broken record rhetoric from the 1960s fool you.  It has taken since Truman and the initial efforts beginning in 1952 to get to this point of serious universal health care being considered.  Perhaps it is time to resurrect Franklin D Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights too.

Ariel Heart is a Colorado Springs native and graduate of University of Pheonix with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration.  She also holds a degree in Sacred Theology from a Bible Institute.  She has worked for Fortune 500 companies in a widely varied career for the last twenty some years.  She is currently working on her fist full length non-fiction book with the goal of getting published.

Tags: Health Issues, Legislative

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