Hanna Rosin posted yesterday on this NPR interview with James Morone, one of the authors of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office.
In that interview, NPR cites Ronald Reagan, opposing the creation of Medicare, thus:
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. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.
Morone responds that Reagan went a step further in his opposition:
If this program passes, Reagan said in another speech, one of these years we will tell our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.
To the chagrin of my farther-left-than-I colleagues and readers, I continue to have tremendous respect for Ronald Reagan and great appreciation for how he helped refurbish the American spirit at a critical time in our history. But even as a Reaganophile, I am forced (with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight) to respond with a snort to Reagan’s doomsday predictions about Medicare.
I am of roughly the same generation as Reagan’s children; my son of roughly the same generation as Reagan’s grandchildren. My parents did not need to tell me, and I have not yet had to tell my son “what it was like in America when men were free” — because (guess what?) we actually live in an America that can still be described as “land of the free.”
Imagine that.
Granted, the pending tidal wave of aging Boomers threatens the solvency of Medicare and other social programs — and by extension the solvency of the nation — and some hard choices will need to be made soon. But I see those choices, those adjustments, as part of the logical evolution of government programs. Any failure to make those choices — and any resulting compromise to America’s viability — will be the responsibility of today’s crop of politicians, not those who voted for Medicare two generations ago.
Sadly, it is Reagan’s political heirs who are now making those hard choices even harder, by invoking the false image of death panels and otherwise stirring up Medicare beneficiaries to shout down fiscally necessary reforms — even as they invoke Reagan’s anti-Medicare language to resist the larger, related slate of reforms.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not entirely sold on the current reform proposals. I have many questions and doubts about them. I think caution and precision should still rule the day. I’m also still curious about alternatives to the “public option,” such as “co-ops,” even after reading more about the latter and realizing that, yes, they might have as many con’s as pro’s — as many potential flaws as the public option has, if not more.
By the same token — while there may be multiple risks to virtually any reform; while whatever type of reform passes today will likely, eventually require some amendment to fix unanticipated (or unanticipatable) issues — I flatly reject the premise that the public option will be the end of America as we know it. I reject the premise that the public option, if enacted, will force us some day to “tell our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.”
I reject those premises based on the history of Medicare to date and the experience of countries like contemporary Germany (also here), which purportedly has a “public option” and still affords its citizens considerable freedom.
Imagine that.
Bottomline: Members of Congress — Democrat and Republican alike — need to grow up. Drop ideologically discredited claims (on both sides of the aisle) and honestly, cooperatively explore how a public option might be fine-tuned to replicate here the successes realized elsewhere, even as they honestly, cooperatively explore alternatives to the public option. Yes, eventually, said exploration needs to end and votes need to be called. But I don’t think we’re there yet, not until a little more of those “honest” and “cooperative” modifiers are attached to the process.