Government health insurance, redux.

[themadscientist]

It might do Barry some good to look at history. This has been tried before and rejected by the American people. They saw it for what it was, and many of us still do. I see a familiar name mentioned too, John Dingell, the same guy now being lambasted at town hall meetings by THE PEOPLE HE SERVES.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/a...m.htm

This Day in Truman HistoryNovember 19, 1945President Truman's Proposed Health Program

On November 19, 1945, only 7 months into his presidency, Harry S. Truman sent a Presidential message to the United States Congress proposing a new national health care program. In his message, Truman argued that the federal government should play a role in health care, saying "The health of American children, like their education, should be recognized as a definite public responsibility." One of the chief aims of President Truman's plan was to insure that all communities, regardless of their size or income level, had access to doctors and hospitals. The statistics in President Truman's message demonstrated the urgent need for such measures: "About 1,200 counties, 40 percent of the total in the country, with some 15,000,000 people, have either no local hospital, or none that meets even the minimum standards of national professional associations. "

President Truman's plan was to improve the state of health care in the United States by addressing five seperate issues. The first issue was the lack of doctors, dentists, nurses, and other health professionals in many rural or otherwise lower-income areas of the United States. Harry S. Truman saw that "the earning capacity of the people in some communities makes it difficult if not impossible for doctors who practice there to make a living." He proposed to attract doctors to the areas that needed them with federal funding. The second problem that Truman aimed to correct was the lack of quality hospitals in rural and lower-income counties. President Truman proposed to provide government funds for the construction of new hospitals accross the country. To insure only quality hospitals were built, the plan also called for the creation of national standards for hospitals and other health centers. Harry S. Truman's third iniative was closely tied to the first two. It called for a board of doctors and public officials to be created. This board would create standards for hospitals and ensure that new hospitals met these standards. The board would also be responsible for directing federal funds into medical research.

The most controversial aspect of the plan was the proposed national health insurance plan. In the November 19th address, President Truman called for the creation of a national health insurance fund, to be run by the federal government. This fund would be open to all Americans, but would remain optional. Participants would pay monthly fees into the plan, which would cover the cost of any and all medical expenses that arose in a time of need. The government would pay for the cost of services rendered by any doctor who chose to join the program. In addition, the insurance plan would give a cash balance to the policy holder to replace wages lost due to illness or injury.

Harry S. Truman's health proposals finally came to Congress in the form of a Social Security expansion bill, co-sponsored in Congress by Democratic senators Robert Wagner (N.Y.) and James Murray (Mont.), along with Representative John Dingell (D.-Mich). For this reason, the bill was known popularly as the W-M-D bill. The American Medical Association (AMA) launched a spirited attack against the bill, capitalizing on fears of Communism in the public mind. The AMA characterized the bill as "socalized medicine", and in a forerunner to the rhetoric of the McCarthy era, called Truman White House staffers "followers of the Moscow party line".* Organized labor, the main public advocate of the bill, had lost much of it's goodwill from the American people in a series of unpopular strikes. Following the outbreak of the Korean War, President Truman was finally forced to abandon the W-M-D Bill. Although Harry S. Truman was not able to create the health program he desired, he was sucessful in publicizing the issue of health care in America. During his Presidency, the not-for-profit health insurance fund Blue Shield-Blue Cross grew from 28 million policies to over 61 million.** When on July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B.Johnson signed Medicare into law at the Harry S. Truman library, he said that it "all started really with the man from Independence".**

What the left-wing talkers and a lot of people who want this bill to succeed can't understand about the opposition is this; It's not the idea of taking care of people that is being rejected. Nobody is going to bat for denying people care, that's a red herring and any thinking person can see through that bulls***. The problem is, when a group with a history of seeking to erode personal freedoms and accumulating more power for themselves says "let us take care of you" a wise man looks to see what they are hiding. Obama, Pelosi, Reed, and their ilk don't care about us, they have demonstrated this. They care about themselves. With that in mind it behooves us to probe for the angle, the dodge, the true motivations for their feigned benevolence.

Is health care f***ed up? You're damned right it is. We need to shake it up and see where there is waste and unfairness and I am 100% behind looking seriously at it and making corrections. And unlike the backpedaling president, I AM FOR A PUBLIC OPTION. Yes, I am for a public OPTION, not what I see in the current house bill where they create a cutoff date and then award themselves the unchecked power to determine what an acceptable plan is. That isn't an option, that is a mechanism for expansion. We have dealt with this system for decades, why suddenly must we "get this done immediately"?

I'll tell you why. Just like the stimulus bill, just like cap and trade, they want to flash it by you like an illusionist when he is trying to deceive an audience. If you don't have time to read the fine print you can't see where they buried the meat of their intentions. I don't know about you, but when I have a contract pushed across the table at me I read that mofo and I start at the bottom, with the 4-point font small s*** because it's last and it's small for a reason, and not because the huckster trying to sell you that Yugo is trying to save the rainforest.

Let's talk about overhauling health care but lets really look at it, like a doctor would. Test the system, see where their is inequity, follow the trail of waste, and then prescribe a treatment. Let's make the insurance companies explain their tactics; that should be fun. And let's drag the pharmaceutical companies in alongside them. Nobody talks about the drug companies, why? Obama loves to demonize the insurance companies, and it is fair, but nobody even whispers about the insane cost of medications, why? Draw your own conclusion...

http://www.opensecrets.org/pre...d=H04

I love how Americans have rolling outrage that spotlights individual industries for a couple of months and then forgets. Put these people on the hot seat with Congress and the President. They all need a spanking from the American people. I am concerned that a group as inept, corrupt and wasteful as the United States government is the body to do the looking but with informed empowered citizens keeping their thumbs on these scumbags they might actually do an honest days work for a change. Nancy Pelosi calls these people Nazis, nice. I call them agents of change, and not the kind with acorn buttons. Those are pissed off citizens taking their elected representatives to task and it's about time.