When Medicare Was Defeated (Again and Again)

Anyone interested in the history of health reform may enjoy this essay by Larry DeWitt, public historian at the Social Security Administration. It’s one of the sources for my column in Wednesday’s paper.

In the column, I focused on the origins of Medicare as a incremental measure, after Harry Truman’s plans for universal coverage failed. But among other good details, the essay also includes a 1960s cameo by Ronald Reagan:

The [American Medical Association's] campaign against Medicare also marked the beginning of the political career of another rising force in American politics — Ronald Reagan. Most conventional histories of Reagan’s political career date his emergence as a political figure from his nominating speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican Convention. But in 1963 Reagan was the AMA’s spokesman for their campaign against Medicare. The AMA, in what was called Operation Coffee Cup, organized thousands of small meetings in homes all across the land, hosted by the wives of AMA physicians. At these informal “coffees” the women would organize local efforts against the pending Medicare legislation. This would include letter-writing campaigns to members of Congress, petition drives, networking with other civic groups, and the like. The central event of each meeting was the playing of a recording made of Reagan presenting a short, dramatic, speech against the evils of Medicare. Reagan played the socialized medicine theme to the hilt, suggesting that the idea of government sponsored medical insurance was little short of the entering wedge of socialist domination of America. His concluding appeal is typical of his sales pitch:

“… behind it will come other Federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. Until one day, as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days you and I 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.”
economix.blogs.nytimes.com