Socialized medicine label nothing new in healthcare reform debate

‘SOCIALIZED MEDICINE’ CHARGE NOTHING NEW IN HEALTHCARE REFORM DEBATE


By M.C. Burton

All presidents, Democrat and Republican, who have taken on the status quo and proposed changes to America’s healthcare system have been falsely labeled “socialist” or “communist.” What’s rare about this time in history is that the current president has taken a moderately centrist role in advocating healthcare reform as opposed to President Clinton or even President Truman.
Locally, we read front page stories about citizens who believe the president has “appointed czars with communist and socialist ties and speaking out against America and our founding fathers.” Letters-to-the-editor compare President Obama to Hitler and label him “fascist” for proposing reform.
Giving free publicity to dolts who don’t know the difference between socialism and fascism (two opposite political ideologies) is something the media has done consistently during the healthcare reform debate. Journalists fan the flames of reactionary ignorance by failing to correct the false claims, and they also fail to give any context about healthcare reform in the history of our country. Here’s what some opponents said about plans to provide healthcare and senior care to Americans when they were first introduced:

Franklin D. Roosevelt labeled a ‘communist’ for creating Social Security

In the 1930s, opponents of FDR used the same kind of rhetoric and false political labels when he proposed creating what is now the most popular government program: Social Security. Critics called FDR “Red Roosevelt” and “a czar/dictator.” The American Liberty League called him a fascist (of course Roosevelt would later lead the United States in a war against fascism). In a strange similarity with another bellicose talk radio host of today, Father Charles Coughlin spouted invectives on the radio airwaves against Roosevelt. He called Roosevelt “a Communist in the chair once occupied by Washington” and said the New Deal was mired “in the Red mud of Soviet communism,”
Opponents of the new Social Security program used some of the same hyperbole we hear today. Some Republican congressmen said the proposal would “threaten the integrity of our institutions” and “lead to a fingerprint test” for millions of Americans. The American Medical Association ridiculed the Roosevelt administration’s “attempt to evolve a plan of socialized medicine” and labeled supporters of the bill as “un-American.”

Unlike Obama, however, FDR deflected these critics by proactively controlling the debate through his famous “fireside chats.” During one of these radio broadcasts, he said:
“A few timid people, who fear progress, will try to give you new and strange names for what we are doing. Sometimes they will call it ‘fascism,’ sometimes ‘communism,’ sometimes ‘regimentation,’ sometimes ‘socialism.’ But, in so doing, they are trying to make very complex and theoretical something that is really very simple and practical…I believe that what we are doing today is a necessary fulfillment of what Americans have always been doing – a fulfillment of old and tested American ideals.”

Truman and national health insurance
Actually, the first president who proposed national health insurance was not considered a liberal. On Nov. 19, 1945, just seven months into his presidency, Harry S. Truman proposed that Congress enact a sweeping national healthcare program. One of the chief purposes of Truman’s plan was to ensure that all communities, regardless of their size or income level, had access to doctors and hospitals. In his Nov. 19, 1945 address to Congress, Truman called for the creation of a national health insurance fund to be run by the federal government. The fund would be open to all U.S. citizens, but would be optional. Those choosing to participate would pay monthly fees into the plan, which would cover the cost of any and all medical expenses in time of need. The plan called for the government to pay for the cost of services rendered by any doctor who chose to join the program.
Again, critics invoked the scare of Communism in the public mind, and this time those fears were more easily stoked in the wake of World War II. One senator claimed that the bill “came right out of the Soviet constitution.” The American Medical Association characterized the bill as “socialized medicine,” and, called members of the Truman administration “followers of the Moscow party line,” a phrase to be used frequently by Joe McCarthy during the Communist witch hunt a few years later.
“Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health,” Truman said. “Millions do not have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.” Ultimately, Truman could not overcome the opposition from Congress on this proposal. For a full text of President Truman’s special message to Congress on Nov. 19, 1945, go to:

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/healthprogram.htm

LBJ and Medicare
After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson took up his proposal to form a safety net for America’s seniors – Medicare. Of course opponents of the proposal could not easily define LBJ as a “socialist,” but some, like George H.W. Bush, did call the plan “socialized medicine.” Among one of the most notable opponents was Ronald Reagan, then a candidate for the governor of California. In a taped advertorial for the American Medical Association, Reagan said in opposition to Medicare:
“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 choice to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it.”
In another message, when the bill was very close to passage, Reagan pleaded for citizens to call their congressman, saying that if passed, the program “would invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day, we awake to find that we have socialism.”
More than 43 million senior Americans use Medicare today, 44 years after the U.S. Congress passed the legislation.

Nixon’s proposal for healthcare reform
In the 1970s, Democrats tried to create a “Medicare for all” program of health insurance. Facing re-election in 1974, Nixon offered an alternative to universal hea lth insurance where everyone would be offered a minimum level of comprehensive benefits, regardless of how they were covered by their employer. Those who were not offered benefits by their employer would be eligible for a subsidized public plan with costs shared by the federal government. Basically it would be a Medicaid-type insurance plan that was subsidized, not free. Sound familiar? The plan unraveled as the Watergate scandal developed.For more on the Nixon plan, read “Obama’s healthcare dilemma evokes memories of 1974” at: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Checking-In-With/stuart-altman.aspx


HillaryCare defeated

Bill Clinton had campaigned heavily on universal healthcare in 1992. In 1993, The main element of his proposed plan was an enforced mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely-regulated HMOs. Although the plan did require mandates for employers to provide coverage, it was not socialized medicine and did not dismantle the employer-based health insurance system. Still, many opponents dubbed it “socialized medicine” and “centalized bureaucractic socialism.”

President Obama has not proposed a single payer, nationalized healthcare system. The government wouldn’t own any health clinics, employ doctors, or scrap our current employer-based insurance system under either the House or Senate proposals that critics call “Obama Care.”

Obviously, when any president wants to change the status quo where big companies make enormous profits at the expense of the masses, he has faced a vicious chorus of opponents who spread lies and stoke fears of “communism” or “socialism.” What’s happening today is nothing new, but what is surprising is the level of vindictiveness against a president whose plan more closely resembles Richard Nixon’s proposal for national health insurance than Bill Clinton’s.

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