JFK and Healthcare for All in 1962

[James DiEugenio]

Jimmy Dore nails it with this one.

 

 

[David Andrews]

And that's why they killed him.  Socialism!  The AMA's worst nightmare.

Edited November 11, 2019 by David Andrews

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, David Andrews said:

And that's why they killed him.  Socialism!  The AMA's worst nightmare.

 

Unfortunately, American voters are also afraid of socialism. Even those who would (and who do) benefit most from socialism. Those on the right have successfully painted it as evil.

(BTW, that is the reason the DNC and "establishment" Democratic congressional leaders are careful with their words when talking about social programs. It's not because they are against them.

 

[David Andrews]

Sandy, you realize that the majority of Americans who fear Socialism can't define it in a simple sentence, right?  They get their fear of it from Fox News, evangelical pastors, and other mongerers. 

I honestly suspect that you could have gotten better explanations of the term out of Americans before the Cold War.

Most Americans have no knowledge of how well limited Socialist programs have worked in Europe.  That's the blinding power of green money dreams and class hatred, remarkable in a country that has never seen at first hand the excesses of either monarchical Imperialism or Communism.  Europe, where they've had to set their teeth against both, has been willing to make the Socialist experiment, and nobody's died except at the hands of Gladio.

Speaking of usage, I don't recall a single GOP presidential candidate in recent memory railing against Socialism.  They don't seem to want to touch it, and leave it to senators and congressmen, lesser politicians, administration supporters and media pundits to shake that witch-doctor's rattle in our faces.  Let me know if I'm wrong here.

If you really want to see bastions of anti-Socialism in the US, pay close attention when you have to visit a doctor who has had to join a medical syndicate to stay competitive, or visit a for-profit hospital struggling to keep out of the red.  I'm thinking that the US medical establishment is one of the bulwarks against the advance of social programs that could open the door to limited Socialism or socialized medicine in America.  Thanks to organized medicine, we won't even get socialized death services in this country, unless we die broke and the county has to bury us.

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by David Andrews

[Ron Bulman]

David, very few U S citizens can define oligarchy or plutocracy or the difference between them.  The 1-5% or less own the MSM and politicians who determine the connotation of terms like socialism for the masses.  Imho, limited socialism should be a part of democracy to help control the greed associated with capitalism, which is also a necessary part of democracy.  I'm (obviously) not well educated on the subject, so no expert.  Jmo.

[Ron Bulman]

On ‎11‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 12:55 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Jimmy Dore nails it with this one.

 

 

Thanks for this Jim.  Never seen this speech by JFK.  It's outstanding.  I'd guess many of us on here realize why it's not been featured on Fox News or discussed in the NYT.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Ron Bulman

[W. Niederhut]

    Medicare-- famously denounced in the 60s by Ronald Reagan-- was astonishingly successful in reducing senior poverty in the U.S., one of the great American policy success stories of the 20th century.

    But U.S. healthcare policy success stories since the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid in the 60s have been few, until the arduous passage of the ACA in 2009.  For states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA, the progress has been significant.   But the GOP Koch machinery, since 2009, has relentless obstructed and weakened even the partial reforms of the ACA-- and the Trump GOP Tax Scam and Healthcare Demolition Act of December 2017 abrogated the ACA individual mandate that underpins the system.

Beyond that, the private U.S. insurance corporations are siphoning about one third of every healthcare dollar spent on "administrative" costs + profits. (Canada spends about 16 percent to "administer" coverage for everyone.)  And insurers have been incessantly focused on cutting their costs through increased co-pays, formulary restrictions, and barriers to care.   (One of the reasons I retired last year.)

And, of course, private hospitals, physicians, and Big Pharma are gouging U.S. consumers.

I have believed, for years, that a single payer system would greatly reduce healthcare  costs for Americans, and improve access to affordable care.

What stands in the way of much-needed reforms?  Corporate greed, from the sector that has now surpassed the military-industrial complex in expenditures on U.S. lobbying and political bribery -- health insurance, hospital, and pharmaceutical corporations.

[James DiEugenio]

Its a scandal really.  I mean the Clintons folded on this issue and brought us the HMO solution.

[W. Niederhut]

12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Its a scandal really.  I mean the Clintons folded on this issue and brought us the HMO solution.

I remember it well.

I supported Bill Clinton's 1992 candidacy, partly because he repeatedly talked during the 1992 campaign about "taking on the (health) insurance corporations" to reform our for-profit healthcare non-system.

When he got to the White House, he then appointed Hillary to chair Ira Magaziner's healthcare reform task force.  (Magaziner was a legendary Brown University alumnus who, as an undergrad, had spear-headed curricular reforms at Brown before I matriculated there in 1975.)

But, lo and behold, Hillary and Ira Magaziner's 1993 healthcare reform task force set up a series of meetings with for-profit insurance industry moguls that accomplished nothing substantial.  They issued a cosmetic "patient bill of rights" and created a new paperwork requirement to ostensibly protect patient confidentiality.    (The practical result of Hillary's healthcare "reform" for me was that I had to jump through more hoops to access my patients' lab results and records.)

Edited November 12, 2019 by W. Niederhut

[James DiEugenio]

The thing about the Clinton was how quickly they rejected the single payer solution.

They took it off the table. It never really entered the debate.

[David Andrews]

It's a scandal, and in Paris and Santiago people have been rioting over less this year.  In the US, we're lucky if some boomer plays "Street Fighting Man" on YouTube and stands up to sing into his Heineken bottle.  Not that I haven't done that.

Edited November 12, 2019 by David Andrews

[Cliff Varnell]

Something like $17million was spent on these "Harry and Louise" ads attacking Clinton's health care plan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/19/us/harry-and-louise-return-with-health-insurance-plan.html

Under Obamacare I get a $1,262 a month Kaiser plan for $62 a month.

Too bad the Trumpenlinks will never give Obama credit for getting affordable national health insurance off the ground, albeit not in full flight.

 

[W. Niederhut]

      The one decent thing that the Clinton health task force accomplished was COBRA -- preventing insurance companies from terminating coverage if people lost their jobs.  But, in practice, the COBRA plans were often unaffordable for people who lost their jobs.   

     And as Varnell points out, the industry invested bigly in advertising to undermine the Clinton era efforts at healthcare reform.  The same thing happened in the case of Obamacare with the Koch's "Opt Out" advertising, and the Fox News false "testimonials" against Obamacare.

    Meanwhile, after the GOP Koch Machine bought the Tea Party House in November of 2010, Paul Ryan wrote and passed two House budget bills that would have essentially abolished Medicare as we know it for people born after 1959-- turning it into a Voucher Care subsidy plan!  

    To put the Clinton reform effort in historical perspective, the Republican Presidents who occupied the White House for 23 of the past 39 years did NOTHING to solve our national healthcare problems.  The only exception is that Dubya passed his unfunded Medicare D prescription plan benefit just before the 2004 election, which blocked the ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and has contributed to the accelerated bankruptcy of Medicare funds.

   Worst of all has been Trump, who claimed in 2016 to have a "terrific healthcare plan" that would "cover everyone and cost less."  Then, on March 3, 2017, Trump endorsed the Paul Ryan/GOP healthcare plan that proposed gutting Medicaid, cutting Medicare, ending insurance subsidies for working class Americans, and failing to protect people with pre-existing conditions-- a complete public health debacle!

    The truth is that Trump never HAD a healthcare plan.  He lied.  Nor did he fulfill his 2016 campaign pledge that -- unlike his Republican primary rivals -- he, alone, would not cut Medicare or Medicaid.

[Kirk Gallaway]

All true. If Hubert Humphrey had gotten elected in 1968, we'd have a good single payer system now. It's amazing how effective they've been at branding this so that an  everyday American  can say he's down on "Socialized medicine" and yet not realize he'd have to forfeit his Medicare.

Similarly I wonder if in the 2020 Race, branding Bernie Sanders as a Socialist would actually work.  You can see the Democratic Party insiders as well as Liberal media pundits are working against him and are apt to exclude him as a real contender. Though polls have shown that the younger people  are, the less intimidated they are by the label, Socialist.

[W. Niederhut]

           Excellent NYT review article this week about Donald Trump's under-the-radar sabotage of the ACA, written by University of Michigan Law Professor Nicholas Bagley.   (More evidence of Trump's truly astonishing dishonesty and amorality.)

Some of Trump’s Most Devious Lies Are About Health Care

What the administration says it’s doing and what it’s actually doing on health care are worlds apart.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/opinion/trump-healthcare.html?auth=login-email&login=email