Arguments Against Medicare in 1960s the Same as Those Against Health Care Reform

by Mike Hall, Aug 25, 2009

The drive to demonize health care reform isn’t likely to slow down. Testy teabaggers at town halls were just the first wave.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey—now a hired gun/corporate lobbyist—and his phony grassroots group FreedomWorks, are planning a march on Washington to “save” grandma and grandpa from death panels. Translation: Armey & Co. are trying to throw a protective shield around the private health insurance industry.

Just yesterday, Michael Steele, and the Republican National Committee he heads, announced a so-called “Seniors Health Care Bill of Rights” to “protect” Medicare and, of course, “save” grandma and grandpa from those so-called death panels—which are not in the bill, never were in the bill and won’t be in any health care reform bill.

Lately we’ve reported how union members and health care and other activists are kicking up mobilization efforts to counter health care reform fantasies with facts and how Media Matters busts open the 14 biggest lies about health care reform with detailed documentation.

Now,  the nonpartisan Center for Medicare Advocacy has posted a great, side-by-side look at the differences between the health care system we have now and the proposed health care reform legislation.

It provides the kind of straightforward answers that might help you the next time run into a well-meaning, but misinformed neighbor, friend or co-worker who is singing from the Armey/Steele/Teabag songbook.

For example, the chart notes that under our current system, most people get their health care from their employer, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, the military or private insurance. Under health care reform, “You will be able to  keep the health insurance that you have.”

In today’s health care system you may be without health insurance or lose your coverage if your employer doesn’t provide it or drops it, if you lose your job, or can’t afford private insurance. Under health care reform that includes a public health insurance option, the Center for Medicare Advocacy points out:

You will have a number of health plans from which to choose. If you have limited income, you will receive assistance for the cost of the premium.

Among other elements, the chart covers the way private insurance companies operate today-denying coverage for preexisting conditions or charging higher premiums based on gender and health status. Those and other private insurance industry abuses will stop under health care reform.

The Center also notes that many of the same arguments against a public health plan option are the recycled, four-plus-decade old rants the private insurance industry and Republican lawmakers used against the establishment of  Medicare.

Forty-four years, ago Medicare was enacted into law. All of today’s dire warnings about a public health option—”socialism” and government barring the doctor’s door—were made in opposition to Medicare. Despite such opposition from “conservative,” leaders, Medicare passed because of some courageous, principled law-makers.

Our 44-year-old public health insurance option provides care to all its enrollees everywhere in the country, and has provided health and economic security for millions of older people, people with disabilities, and their families. For two generations, the public Medicare program has shown what a true public insurance program can offer: health insurance for the otherwise uninsured, at a price that taxpayers can afford.

Today’s nearly unanimous Republican Senate and House opposition to a public option like Medicare, shows just how tightly in a conservative lockstep GOP lawmakers are marching.

In 1965, when the likes of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole were railing against the socialized medicine, the end of personal freedom, destruction of the doctor-patient relationship and the assorted other evils Medicare was sure to bring, 13 Republican senators and 70 GOP House members, didn’t buy the lies and voted for Medicare. Click here, it’s true

I guess some things don’t age gracefully.

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