Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine
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 would
adopt every fragment of the socialist program.
There are many ways in which our government has
invaded the free precincts of private citizens,
method of earning a living; our government is in
business to the extent of owning more than 19,000
businesses covering 47 different lines of activity.
This amounts to 1/5th of the total industrial
capacity of the United States.
But at the moment I would like to talk about another
one because this threat is with us, and at the
moment, more imminent.
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
have 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.
So with the American people on record as not wanting
socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand introduced
the Ferrand bill. This was the idea that all people
of social security age, should be brought under a
program of compulsory health insurance. This would
not only be our senior citizens, this would be the
dependents and those that are disabled, this would
be young people if they are dependents of someone
eligible for social security.
Now Congressman Ferrand, brought the program out on
that idea out , on just for that particular group of
people. But Congressman Ferrand was subscribing to
this foot-in-the door philosophy, because he said,
�If we can only break through and get our foot
inside the door, then we can extend the program
after that. Walter Ruth said, �It�s no secret that
the United Automobile Workers is officially on
record of backing a program of national health
insurance. And by national health insurance, he
meant socialized medicine for every American.
Now let us see what the socialist themselves have to
say about it. They say once the Ferrand bill is
passed this nation will be provided with a mechanism
for socialized medicine capable of indefinite
expansion in every direction until it includes the
entire population. Now we can�t say we haven�t been
warned.
Now Congressman Ferrand is no longer a Congressman
of the United States government. He has been
replaced, not in the particular assignment, but in
his backing of such a bill by Congressman King of
California. It is presented in the idea of a great
emergency that millions of our senior citizens are
unable to provide needed medical care. But this
ignores that fact that 127 million of our citizens,
in just 10 years, have come under the protection of
some form of privately owned medical or hospital
insurance.
Now the advocates of this bill when you try to
oppose it challenge you on an emotional basis and
say, �What would you do? Throw these poor people out
to die with no medical attention??/p>
That�s ridiculous and of course no one is advocating
it. As a matter of fact, in the last session of
Congress a bill was adopted known as the Kerr/Mill
bill. Now without even allowing this bill to be
tried to see if it works, they have introduced this
King bill, which is really the Ferrand bill.
What is the Kerr/Mills bill? It is the frank
recognition of the medical need or problem of the
senior citizens I have mentioned and it has provided
from the federal government, money to the states and
the local communities that can be used at the
discretion of the states to help those people who
need it.
Now what reason could the other people have for
backing a bill which says we insist on compulsory
health insurance for senior citizens on a basis of
age alone regardless if they are worth millions of
dollars, whether they have an income, whether they
are protected by their own insurance, whether they
have savings.
I think we can be excused for believing that as
ex-congressman Ferrand said, this was simply an
excuse to bring about what they wanted all the time;
socialized medicine.
James Madison in 1788 speaking to the Virginia
convention said, �Since the general civilization of
mankind, I believe there are more instances of the
abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual
and silent encroachments of those in power than by
violent and sudden usurpations.?/p>
They want to attach this bill to social security and
they say here is a great insurance program; now
instituted, now working.
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 another.
But let�s also look from the other side. The freedom
the doctor uses. A doctor would be reluctant to say
this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can
say it in his behalf. A doctor begins to lose his
freedom, it�s like telling a lie. One leads to
another. First you decide the doctor can have so
many patients. They are equally divided among the
various doctors by the government, but then the
doctors are equally divided geographically, so a
doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and
the government has to say to him he 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 I wonder if any of us has a right
to take from any human being. I know how I�d feel if
you my fellow citizens, that to be an actor I had to
be a government employee and work in a national
theatre. Take it into your own occupation or that of
your husband. 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 son won�t
decide when he�s in school where he will go or what
he will do for a living. He will wait for the
government to tell him where he will go to work and
what he will do.
In this country of ours, took place the greatest
revolution that has ever taken place in the world�s
history; the only true revolution. Every other
revolution just exchanged one set of rulers for
another. But here, for the first time in all the
thousands of years of man�s relations to man, a
little group of men, the founding fathers, for the
first time, established the idea that you and I had
within ourselves, the God given right and ability,
to determine our own destiny. This freedom is built
into our government with safeguards. We talk
democracy today, and strangely, we let democracy
begin to assume the aspect of majority rules all
that is needed. The �majority rule?is a fine aspect
of democracy provided there are guarantees written
in to our government concerning the rights of the
individual and of the minority.
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.
In Washington today, 40 thousand letters, less than
100 per congressman are evidence of a trend in
public thinking. Representative Hallock of Indiana
has said, �When the American people wants something
from Congress, regardless of its political
complexion, if they make their wants known, Congress
does what the people want. So write, and if this man
writes back to you and tells you that he too is for
free enterprise, that we have these great services
and so forth, that must be performed by government,
don�t let him get away with it. Show that you have
not been convinced. Write a letter right back and
tell him that you believe government economy and
fiscal responsibility, that you know governments
don�t tax to get the moneys 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 that he has heard from his constituents and
this is what they want. Write those letters now and
call your friends and them to write. 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 government 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
wake to find that we have socialism, and if you
don�t do this and I don�t do this, 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.
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