Posted on 10/21/2009 9:18:47 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
Dr. Edward Annis, President of the American Medical Association in 1963, gave a talk to conference attendees just before breakfast on September 2, 1963.[1] I would call it prophetic, and extremely insightful.
Unfortunately, politics and the Great Society programs, however, overwhelmed him and the American people in 1965. As a result, Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Annis is no longer living, but his words—almost prophetic—remain. I wish you would pass them on to everyone you know.
We think we are so sophisticated and understand so much more than our predecessors. But Dr. Annis had the fundamentals right back then. Only by history now can we animate his sentiments.
This article is long: nearly 1,350 words, but well worth your time. It will help clarify the issues at stake in our current health care reform debate.
Where he says “Kerr-Anderson” or “Medicare,” you can easily substitute “health care reform” in today’s context. Please take his comments seriously and let them speak to your own concerns, motives, and commitment.
The Key Quote:
“…a federal government takeover [through health care reform] is like poured cement. If you do not struggle as it is being poured, but wait until it is an accomplished fact, it hardens and you never escape.”
The audience to which he spoke included Democrats, Republicans, and political independents. He told them that they all held this in common: faith in the power of human and individual freedom.
“Unfortunately, our faith is not shared by some people in this country—and we find them, too, under a variety of political labels. There is a hard core of Fabian socialists, government bureaucrats, social and economic planners, and political opportunists who believe that there is just one basic answer to any and all national problems. That answer is more and more government programs, bigger and bigger federal budgets to carry out the programs, and higher and higher taxes to finance the budgets to carry out the programs.”
In 1962, Congress attempted to pass “Medicare light,” but public sentiment and citizen pushback stopped it. Annis described the role of doctors in the debate.
“I think I can say, honestly and with pride, that my profession—the entire medical profession—has played a major role in bringing about this trend. More than any other single group, and for many years, we physicians have been threatened—persistently, doggedly and closely—by the various legislative proposals of the social planners. So far, we have resisted them with courage and success, and in so doing I believe we have caused a lot of people to think twice about a lot of things….success was achieved only by going to the American people with the facts….
Annis claimed that all the public needed were the facts, and doctors helped disseminate them to their patients. Once the public had the facts, here is what happened. It reminds me of what happened with the rallies all across the United States in 2009.”
The Gallup Poll, in 1961, had reported that 67 percent of the public favored the King-Anderson type of legislation. By April, 1962, that percentage had dropped to 55. In July, just before the Senate vote, support for the plan had declined to 48 percent. And in August, the Gallup Poll showed only 44 percent of the people favoring Social Security health care [Medicare] for the aged.
“He laid out a list of 15 facts that he believed Americans needed to know. I have condensed and paraphrased them.
Most Americans over 65 were healthy, not sick. And their finances were better than politicians claimed. Medical cost problems were individual, not group problems, and could be met individually. The Kerr-Mills Law passed in 1960 already provided subsidies for low-income seniors. Already, 55 percent of seniors were covered under prepaid or regular health insurance. Estimates were that 70-75 percent would be covered by voluntary purchase of insurance plans within three years. Medicare could never cover the real health needs of all people 65 or older because it had to offer an affordable minimum benefit set to fit everyone, even those who did not need it. H emphasized that Medicare relied on taxing young working people—productive wealth creators.”
I could not resist italicizing this entry:
“It would be the first major step toward national compulsory health insurance for our entire population…Its enactment would have a far-reaching influence on the social, economic and political future of our nation.”
Dr. Annis looked to the future.
“If it is passed, only two steps would be necessary to push the U.S. into full-scale nationalized medicine—providing full medical (including all physicians’ services) for the aged, and then lowering the age restrictions until all Americans are legislated into a government ‘health’ program form the cradle to the grave.”
The political establishment had a theme for their reforms. They claimed it trumped all other arguments. “Health care reform” is the humanitarian thing to do.
“For the Washington bureaucrats, spurred by the pressure of organized labor, are relentless in their determination to expand government welfare programs to cover an increasing proportion of the population in the name of humanitarianism.”
Consider this next quote in the context of the current Washington, DC debate. It reminds me of the worn-out joke: The way to tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving. Speaking of the prior efforts to pass Medicare, Annis wrote:
“It was demonstrated again and again that the program would do what the proponents piously denied it would do: namely, permit government intervention in the practice of medicine in this country for the first time and begin destruction of the twin traditions of freedom of the patient’s choice and freedom of the doctor’s practice which have made American medicine one of the wonders of the modern world.”
America’s Founding Fathers warned their offspring that keeping a Republic together meant being eternally diligent. They knew that government would always try to fill a void, and do it relentlessly.
“But bureaucrats with a mission are a tireless breed. They can lose time and again, and keep coming back and coming back, confident that they will at last wear down their opposition and win their way. Those against them can lose only once. For them there is no second chance.” [Welcome to 2009.]
The primary reason that I become involved in health care reform had very little to do with the way we provide and pay for health care. It had everything to do with maintaining liberty and passing its blessings on to our children and grandchildren. Dr. Annis address this issue, too:
“Medicare is not an isolated issue. Far from it. Medicare is part of a greater struggle which has as its goal the surrender of individual freedom and self-respect on promise of unearned government handouts. The people’s votes and control of their personal lives and destinies would be purchased with their own money, collected in higher taxes and doled back to them by an all-knowing bureaucracy which claims to have a monopoly on sympathy and good will. A more vicious or cynical combination of forces striking at the keystone of liberty would be impossible to imagine.
“Whatever form these welfare schemes assume, the aim is the same—completed centralization of authority in Washington, corruption of a truly independent franchise, and the end of democratic government in this country.
I have long contended that the two groups that could do the most to stop a federal government takeover of health care and prevent the loss of liberty were physicians, and professional health insurance agents. Although Annis does not mention the latter, he lays responsibility on physicians.”
“We [doctors] cannot, because of fatigue or exasperation over the seemingly endless controversy, allow ourselves to get trapped into a compromise which merely means surrender and loss of freedom by the salami method—a slice at a time.”
“Medicine, in order to continue to progress in the future as it has in the past, must continue to operate under a free enterprise system which fosters competition, the striving for excellence, the never-ending attempt to ‘build a better mousetrap.”
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Dave Racer, MLitt, is the co-author with Greg Dattilo, CEBS, of three books on health care reform, and numerous articles. For more information go to http://www.freemarkethealthcare.com, or email Dave at dgracer@comcast.net.
[1] Annis, E. (MD) (1963) Medicare: Bad Medicine for Everyone. Reprint of speech delivered before the breakfast session, Fifth Political Action Conference, Washington, DC. Included in the Journal of the American Medical Association. P 309-311.Ebsco Publishing, Ipswitch, MA.
The problem is “yes we can provide free medical care for all” is a much easier to sell to the public than “no we can’t, you need to provide for yourself”
Not so hard if they understand the cost, which is “all their money and all their liberty.”
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