Happy birthday, Medicare!
President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicaid into law on July 30, 1965. Seated next to him is President Harry Truman.
Medicare turns 47 today, and I’m old enough to remember it — I was almost 13 at the time and more politically aware than most people my age.
Like the Affordable Care Act, Medicare was denounced as a socialist program (actually, many called it Communist). It was the first step on a slippery slope.
Medicare was conceived by Harry Truman, who advocated a universal system, but he was willing to start by caring for the elderly. As soon as he proposed it in 1952, the American Medical Association denounced it and worked to stop its passage.
In 1958, Democratic Congresswoman Aime Forland of Rhode Island, introduced it again, and the AMA squashed it again with a massive campaign.
In 1960, a bill was passed creating a health care plan for indigent elderly, but it wasn’t a so-called entitlement program that would cover everyone who paid into it, but even this was too much for opponents.
In 1961, a new bill that was closer to Medicare as we know it, was vehemently opposed by the AMA and its affiliates. The Woman’s Auxiliary of the AMA launched Operation Coffee Cup — a series of small gatherings in communities across the country — to oppose it; the AMA bought full-page ads in newspapers and took to the airwaves to denounce the bill, known as King-Anderson.
Ronald Reagan made a recording to be played at anti-King-Anderson gatherings, which featured an 11-minute impassioned plea from Ronald Reagan to help him stop this socialist threat:
“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. . . . “
If Medicare became law, according to Reagan, we were headed straight for totalitarianism:
… From here it’s 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.
He urged good Americans to write to their members of Congress and ask then to vote against this travesty. Otherwise:
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.
This time around we have the histrionics of the Tea Party calling for a stop to “Obamacare.” The problem is the same, though. In the 1960s, the anti-socialist frenzy was whipped up by doctors; today it is whipped up by the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey, who can afford their health care and who don’t want to help pay for yours.
Medicare has saved thousands and thousands of lives, offering access to care for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it through our for-profit system. Medicare is one of the most efficient, effective single-payer programs in the world. It is not going broke — or at least it won’t if we can get our national priorities back in line.
A generation or two from now, most Americans will ask what the big deal was about “Obamacare.”
Tags: American Medical Association, Koch Brothers, Lyndon Johnson, Medicare, Ronald Reagan, Tea Party
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Patient Pals & Family Friends
Life o' Mike has a peer support program for people with one or more serious or chronic medical issues or disabilities.
We aim to reduce isolation and fear among people who have conditions, including psychiatric illness, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, mild dementia or other cognitive disorder or disability, thereby reducing depression and complications as people learn to improve self-management of their medical conditions.
Patient Pals help alleviate feelings of isolation and frustration. They can help people develop a list of questions to ask the doctor and then accompany the person to the doctor to make sure all the questions are answered, taking notes to be sure the person understands the doctor’s answers.
Our trained volunteers also accompany their “Pals” to art exhibits, movies and walks outdoors, meet for coffee, call to check in and more.
Our Pals have experienced weight loss, improvement in diabetes, HIV, psoriasis, depression and more, just because they have someone who cares about them. Some relationships develop into longer-term friendships; other Pals move on to more independent lives.
Family Friends are there to help caregivers and other family members grow into their new role.
We need volunteers, who are asked to donate a minimum of one hour a week. Training is free and includes information on active listening, ways to help and when to know more help is needed.
And of course, we need funding.
To learn more, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712 or e-mail lifeomike@gmail.com.
Life o’ Mike honors Joe Eblen
Life o' Mike presented its first Michael T. Danforth Community Service Award to Joe Eblen at a luncheon on June 8, in the Friendship Hall of First Congregational Church, 20 Oak St., Asheville.
Joe, seen here with Leslie Boyd, left, and his wife, Bobbie, has spent his life helping children and families, both as a coach and game official for more than 60 years, and as founder of Eblen Charities.
Start From Seed
Life o' Mike has a new program- Start from Seed (SFS).
SFS is a volunteer doula program aimed at providing non-medical, comprehensive support to low income, high-risk women and families of Buncombe County focusing on three areas:
1. We help new doulas with certification and training in return for their participation as a volunteer doula for SFS
2. We mentor volunteer doulas with their first few clients
3. Our volunteer doulas provide birth and postpartum doula services to low income, high risk moms, providing support and tools to empower them as a new parent.
A birth doula is a trained and experienced professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the mother before, during and just after birth; a postpartum doula provides emotional and practical support during the postpartum period.
Start from Seed clients are referred to us from the Buncombe County Department of Health’s Nurse-Family Partnership Program, Western North Carolina Community Health Services, and Mission Hospital. The Program is intended and designed for growing clients’ inner strength and helping them gain empowerment to help them cope with the emotional, physical and mental challenges of childbirth, labor, and motherhood.
Our new moms and their infants have many needs. If you would like to help them get off to a good start, please visit our Start from Seed web site: Start from Seed, or call Program Director Chelsea Kouns at 804-814-9946.