Ronald Reagan’s Clarity… “The Gipper” Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on June 22, 2009
From an outstanding piece posted on Eject, Eject, Eject:
Ronald Reagan speaks out against socialized medicine
Ronald Reagan’s moving speech against socialized medicine… it feels as though it were written this week instead of way back in 1961:
As if we’re not already overextended enough financially, the issue of National Health Care is now on the table once more vote. Here’s some perspective you might find interesting.
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.
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.
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 savings 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 some place 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. 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 children won’t decide when they’re in school where they will go or what they will do for a living. They will wait for the government to tell them where they will go to work and what they will do.
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.
Former 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 representative writes back to you and tells you that he or she too is for free enterprise, that we have these great services and so forth, that must be performed by government, don’t let them get away with it. Show that you have not been convinced. Write a letter right back and tell them 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 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 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 we 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.
Ronald Reagan is one of my all-time heroes. He embraced many of the same principles I do: the values of hard work, discipline, optimism, freedom, and individuality that America is based upon. As an actor in Hollywood, he was originally a liberal, a registered Democrat. He left the Democrat Party once he recognized the many flaws and deceits in it, and would not accept the false promises of socialism.
Our Founding Fathers and Ronald Reagan are from the same cloth. They recognized that free market and free will and lack of government interference and mandates are imperative for a nation to flourish.
Socialized or single-payer health care, that which is run by the government, is wrong for America. Wrong for any nation.
Just ask the people of Canada or the United Kingdom how many grand promises that government-run health care has not followed through on, has broken or lied about. How is it working for Cuba and Mexico and other countries where the government runs health care? And take a look at how Obama’s health care plan for America is already being altered from what he originally promised it would do and be.
Call, email, or fax your congressman and other elected officials to voice your dissent. Let’s try fixing Medicare and Medicaid first—much cheaper and easier—and limit litigation and lawsuit awards. These options will preserve American free will, cost billions less, improve the existing system, and won’t shove further America down the path to socialism.
Additional reading:
The American Spectator: Gotta’ Love Those Dems on Health Care and House Dems’ Health Care Plan Includes Gov’t Plan
Founding Bloggers: Horrific Health Care Headlines From UK – Our Socialized Medical Future!
Patterico’s Pontifications: Dialing 911 for Obamacare
Hot Air: Quote of the day (Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine) and Oh my: Health care, amnesty, climate change bills all suddenly in trouble and Dems retreating on healthcare and Video: ObamaCare an “Old Joke”; Update: Cost now $1.6 trillion
Baldilocks: Reagan Knew
Inoperable Terran: House health-care bill adds $600 billion in new taxes
Hot Air: Oh my: Health care, amnesty, climate change bills all suddenly in trouble
Founding Bloggers: Horrific Health Care Headlines From UK – Our Socialized Medical Future!
Goodtimepolitics: The White House Admits Americans Will Be Forced Out of Their Current Health Care Plans
Doug Powers, Michelle Malkin: And the best living ex-president is…
JustOneMinute: If The Rain And Clouds Aren’t Depressing You…
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Bad News: Sen. Feingold Admits What We’ve Suspected All Along: Obama’s “Public” Health Care Plan Meant to Ultimately Push Americans to Single-Payer Health Care and A “Must Read” » American Thinker: “Back to ACORN General Hospital” | Obama’s Single-Payer Health Care Nightmare
Breitbart.com: House Democrats muzzle GOP on sensitive issues
Stage Right, Big Hollywood: Broadway Rejects Conservative Plays
Amused Cynic: Obama thinks resistance to government-run health care is illogical….
Michelle Malkin: Selective Outrage of the MSM and Get ready for health care tax-apalooza and Obamacare ground troops at the airport and The drug companies sell out and The Obamacare horror story you won’t hear and Caught on tape: SEIU thuggery and Obamacare bogus statistic of the day and Obamacare bogus statistic of the day, Pt. 2 and Undercover at an Obama health care meet-up and Counterprotesting Obamacare and the ACORN/SEIU mob and Mobilizing against Obamacare and www.facesofgovernmenthealthcare.com
The Conservative Post: Fiscal Irresponsibility Reigns Supreme with Obama Administration
About the author
“How is it working for Cuba and Mexico and other countries where the government runs health care?”
Quite poor, but still probably better than you might think, given the government of the first is pretty close to a dictatorship and the government of the second is caught in a possibly hopeless war against powerful drug cartels.
How is it doing in, say, Japan? Or South Korea? Or European countries other than the UK? I assume it’s just as bad in all of those as the examples you cited.
[...] I read a blog that mentioned a speech from a former President. I find it interesting that Ronald Reagan in 1961 [...]
[...] – text of speech courtesy of Frugal Cafe Blog Zone [...]
Ronald Reagan was the greatest leader this country has seen since Lincoln. My only hope for America is that someone will arise to continue the work Reagan began in the same spirit.
I wonder sometimes what will happen if some of biggies in uK go bankrupt like AIG… ?
So tell me where have all of the pension plans gone for ordinary americans? Very few companies establish pension plans for their employees anymore.
And how do you think an ordinary working person can save up a hundred thou or more for a cardiac bypass, much less 15 thou for a cardiac cath? If not for medicare, many seniors would be dying instead of increasing our life spans and remaining productive much longer.
You will have to kill me to take my medicare card away, and I speak for many millions, who, if it is socialized medicine, we are all for it.
And why don’t you folks let the folks who want to ask questions speak at town hall meetings. Look up the actions of the brown shirts in Germany and tell me who you think act the most like them….the folks who go to ask questions or the folks who go to disrupt.
You’ve made the point exactly. Medicaid and Medicare are BOTH inefficient, and because all of us have had to pay into them all our professional lives, we cannot undo them. We’re essentially stuck. Such is not the case yet with the socialized health care that Obama is proposing. Where the inefficiencies and high costs right now pertaining to just retirees, imagine it increased to ALL Americans. A trillion dollars and it still won’t cover everyone, so rationing will be enforced. Government does not do as well that which the private sector can do. In business, if you’re inefficient, you go out of business. In government, if they are in the red, they increase taxes. There is no accountability.
Pension plans are a perk with large companies. However, with the ever-increasing taxes the government has levied against businesses, with more to come, cuts must be made. Sadly, when push comes to shove, benefits and perks to employees tend to be the first to be slashed. Small businesses have a hard enough time producing a profit, so expecting them to also provide pensions to retirees for 20 or 30 years is unreasonable.
By “brown shirts,” are you referring to the union thugs who beat up and put into the hospital the black conservative in St. Louis? Or the hired Hispanics who were waving signs in favor of ObamaCare, chanting, but when asked what they were protesting, were unable to say what was on their signs, because they could not speak English? They are “mobs for hire.” Until then, the protests were reasonably contained. Now, with Sibelius bringing in “brothers and sisters,” the violence is starting.
If the government did not tax us already on health care for the elderly, and if people could use all the money they’ve paid into the system to pay, instead, for their own health care, we would not be in this mess. Free markets are skewed when the government tries to manipulate them. It failed with housing, it failed with bailouts. It will fail with health care.
Read the bill. There are many cutbacks on what senior citizens will get, since their “usefulness” as productive tax payers has decreased. You think the system is bad now? I agree… it has many problems. But this new plan is worse. I’ve written about it many times on this blog. Seniors will be denied treatments that they currently can get because socialized health care is a sham. However, illegal aliens will be covered. Anyone who has read the bill will realize how terrible it is.
All I have heard about Medicare is that those using it do not want it taken away. I remember Reagen braking up unions, allowiong catsup to be considered a veggie in the free lunch for school children program and his wonderful sec. of the interior who was happy to exploit the planet for Ron’s friends and finally had to be fire for saying ‘I’ve got one Jew, one black, a woman and a cripple.”
Thanks fo nothing.
No one is suggesting that Medicare be taken away, Rebecca, although Obama has said that benefits WILL be greatly reduced under his ObamaCare system. And let’s face it… Medicare has been bankrupted for years.
As far as Reagan’s “ketchup as a vegetable,” much of it had to do with budgets for school lunches and what school children will and will not eat. Kids typically will not eat vegetables unless someone is hanging over them, so millions of pounds of peas, succotash, beets, spinach, etc. were being dumped into the garbage across the country. The kids, for the most part, were NOT eating the vegetables served, and as I remember, Reagan joked about the ketchup because kids will eat ketchup. I admit, he should not have said that ketchup is a vegetable, because despite the vitamins and antioxidants in tomatoes, no one can eat enough ketchup in one sitting to equal one full vegetable serving. I believe relish was also considered for a bit to be treated as a vegetable. The media went wild and attacked him. Not his most shining moment, but as you left out, that policy was abandoned.
And concerning his Sec. of the Interior’s horrible remark, I don’t see you condemning Pres. Obama because of his Czar of Green Jobs (now gone) Van Jones saying that all Republicans are a**holes, Democrat senators saying that conservatives are “terrorists” and “brownshirts,” Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying that dissension is un-American and those who don’t support Obama’s policies are as bad as Nazis or racists. No outcry for what’s happening now, Rebecca, just a few things from several decades ago? Reagan never called Americans names like is happening every week now, he just spoke out against socialism and for free market principles. While Obama has not called anyone these names, he also has not stepped forward and condemned those Democrats who are doing the maligning. NOT ONCE.
What part of breaking up unions are you talking about? I don’t remember unions ever going away. In fact, they are much more insidious today than I can recall from back then. And as far as unions go, while in the early days they had good intentions to help oppressed workers, they drive the price of goods and services way up. Much of the union dues go to line union heads’ pockets.
I’m not sure what your point about Ronald Reagan is. He was a remarkable man and an excellent president, although not perfect. He made some mistakes, being human, but ultimately, was responsible for the creation of millions of private sector jobs in America, undoing the economic nightmare brought on by socialist Jimmy Carter and bringing our country back to prosperity, made this world a safer place from Communism, and was instrumental in bringing down the Berlin Wall.
Reagan’s words against government-run health care are still true today. This administration couldn’t even get Cash for Clunkers done right. I don’t want the clowns in Washington being in charge of my health care. And I don’t want them dismantling our health care insurance system. It is one of the best in the world, although it needs improvement. So, let’s have the government fix the deficit Medicare/Medicaid runs, fix the horrible conditions of government-run health care on Indian reservations, do something about tort reform BEFORE they destroy our health care system. Surveys show that 85 percent of Americans are happy with their health care. I know I am. But I’ll be damned if my family gets fined $1,500 if I choose to not have health care. And I do not want to pay for the health care of illegal aliens.