Anyone remember the lies told about Medicare when it first came in?

[hedgehog]

i was only a little kid, but I recall the discussions between my mother and my aunt, a surgical nurse for an ophthalmologist. My aunt was disgusted at the surgeon telling people they had to hurry and rush their appointments for cataract surgery. She whispered to them behind his back that it was fine for them to wait a few weeks so they could be covered by Medicare!

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Yes, the same 'angst' existed then as now.

[deutsey]

2. “we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

“My name is Ronald Reagan. I have been asked to talk on the several subjects that have to do with the problems of the day. . . .
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. . . . 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 are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program….the consequences for “our children” would be dire: “we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

http://www.winningprogressive.org/remembering-when-reagan-campaigned-against-medicare

[MineralMan]

3. I remember that very well.

It was the same sorts of people telling those lies then who are telling them now.

[liberalhistorian]

4. Yes, the medical profession, particularly the powerful AMA,

prevented the enactment and implementation of Medicare and Medicaid for over thirty years (they were first proposed in the 1930's). It was only when they realized two things: that the tide running for both had finally grown too strong to fully oppose and that it was better that they have input into its form (in a way that would benefit them the most, of course), and that they'd actually have more financial security and, in some cases, be able to make more money. Until then, if older and/or poorer people didn't have the money for needed care, they simply didn't receive it or ttempt to receive it, which meant less money for physicians.

The AMA and a lot of doctors also opposed the first implementations of private health insurance as well, until they saw that the hospitals that started it (what became what is now known as Blue Cross/Blue Shield) were getting paid when they still weren't getting paid. They also opposed social security and social security disability, which I've never been able to figure out why, if they're supposed to be in the helping profession.

And yet now many physicians couldn't survive without Medicare. I try to make this point to my new retired-physician uncle-in-law, who rants against Medicare/Medicaid, government and unions. He wouldn't have made half of his money that he uses for his very fancy seemingly-endless house (my aunt remarried well!), his travels, his fancy cars and country club membership and golfing, had it not been for Medicare (many of his patients were elderly) and unions giving their members good deals on insurance (he's in a heavily-union area).

The same crap fearmongering arguments used to stir up opposition to the ACA were used for all the other programs that are now a part of the fabric of American life and that many don't think twice about, that have given millions of Americans access to needed care and/or income that they very well may have suffered and died without. But remember, it took decades for social security to be implemented in the forms we know now, and years for Medicare and Medicaid to be fully implemented. It will also take time for the ACA, but it will happen and decades from now people will be wondering what the hell all the fuss was about. And doctors will still be ranting against it while making much of their money from it.

I'm particularly disgusted with doctors I've heard whining about how this will mean millions more Americans will enter the care system who aren't getting care now, and that's just too much. How they could even begin to consider more people getting the care they badly need to be a bad thing, I will never figure out. But I don't mean to suggest that that is all doctors, of course. There are thousands who belong to Physicians for National Health Care and many thousands of others who devote their lives to caring for people who may never be able to fully pay them, or who work for helping agencies that cannot afford to pay them much but where they're badly needed. Only thirty percent of American doctors are actually AMA members, and many younger doctors aren't members because they're disgusted with the never-ending opposition to helping measures and the self-serving focus. Problem is, the AMA has most of the power and is listened to the most.