Bill Moyers: "A new study in the journal Health Affairs finds that Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and older are more satisfied with their health insurance, have better access to care, and are less likely to have problems paying medical bills than working-age adults who get insurance through employers or purchase coverage on their own."
Bill Moyers (right) with President Lyndon Johnson during the fight for Medicare. (photo: PBS)
Everyone Should Be Entitled to Medicare
04 Aug 12
ILL MOYERS: I read a news story this week that sent me on a nostalgic trip down memory lane. This past Monday, July 30th was the 47th anniversary of Medicare, and to celebrate it, the "Raging Grannies," as they’re known, gathered outside the county office building in Rochester, New York to protest rumored cuts to their Medicare coverage.
RAGING GRANNIES: This old grey granny now needs a test or two -
BILL MOYERS: They praised Medicare in song as "the best deal we have in the country," and even called for expanding it Medicare into universal health care for everyone.
It seems the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was coming up from Washington to raise funds for Republican congressional candidate Maggie Brooks. The "Raging Grannies" wanted to make certain Ms. Brooks didn’t sign on to the GOP budget which includes cuts to Medicare.
For myself, the "Raging Grannies" channeled a familiar voice, the Texas twang of my boss back in 1965, Lyndon Baines Johnson. I was a White House assistant at the time and had been working with the President and others on the team trying to get Medicare through Congress. Even with overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, it was one tough fight. Others had tried before us.
In his 1948 State of the Union message, President Harry Truman said:
HARRY TRUMAN: This great Nation cannot afford to allow its citizens to suffer needlessly from the lack of proper medical care. Our ultimate aim must be a comprehensive insurance system to protect all our people equally against insecurity and ill health.
BILL MOYERS: But every time Harry Truman proposed legislation to do just that, Congress refused to budge. In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy took up the cause:
JOHN F. KENNEDY: Our working men and women, instead of being forced to ask for help from public charity, once they are old and ill, should start contributing now to their own retirement health program through the Social Security System…
BILL MOYERS: But his proposal failed in the Senate by just two votes.
On the other side, actor Ronald Reagan, still in private life, had signed on as the American Medical Association’s hired spokesman in their campaign against Medicare. Doctors’ wives organized thousands of small meetings in homes around the country, where guests listened to a phonograph record of Reagan deploring the evils of "socialized medicine":
RONALD REAGAN: 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 […] 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.
BILL MOYERS: But now, it was Lyndon Johnson’s turn. Tragically thrust into the White House by Kennedy’s assassination, LBJ, the son of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, vowed to finish what they had started. He pushed us relentlessly to get it done. Here he is talking to his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, in early March of 1965:
LYNDON JOHNSON: They are bogged down. The House had nothing this week, all -damn week. Now that’s where you and Moyers and Larry O’Brien have got to find something for them. And the Senate had nothing […] so we just wasted three weeks […] Now we are here in the first week in March, and we have just got to get these things passed […] I want that program carried. And I’ll put every Cabinet officer behind you. I’ll put every banker behind you. I’ll put every organization we got behind you […] I’ll put the labor unions behind you."
BILL MOYERS: About all he had left was the White House kitchen sink, and pretty soon he threw that behind us, too.
Later that March he called me to talk about a retroactive increase in Social Security payments that we were supporting. I had argued for it as a stimulus to the economy. LBJ said okay, but reminded me that social security and Medicare were about a lot more than economics:
LYNDON JOHNSON: My inclination would be […] that it ought to be retroactive as far back as you can get it […] because none of them ever get enough. That they are entitled to it. That that's an obligation of ours. It's just like your mother writing you and saying she wants $20, and I'd always sent mine a $100 when she did. I never did it because I thought it was going to be good for the economy of Austin. I always did it because I thought she was entitled to it. And I think that's a much better reason and a much better cause and I think it can be defended on a hell of a lot better basis […] We do know that it affects the economy […] But that's not the basis to go to the Hill, or the justification. We've just got to say that by God you can't treat grandma this way. She's entitled to it and we promised it to her.
BILL MOYERS: LBJ kept that promise. He pushed and drove and cajoled and traded, until Congress finally said yes. And so it was that 47 years ago, we traveled to Independence, Missouri, the hometown of Harry Truman, and there with the former president at his side, LBJ signed Medicare into law. Turning to Truman, whom he called "the real daddy of Medicare, " Johnson signed him up as its first beneficiary. Harry Truman was 81.
All this was high drama, touched with history, sentimentality, politics, and compromise. A whole lot of compromise. The bill wasn’t all LBJ wanted. It was, in fact, deeply flawed. There were too few cost controls, as some principled conservatives warned, who were then rudely ignored. Co-pays and deductibles remain a problem. And we didn’t anticipate the impact of new technology, or the impact of a burgeoning population.
In fact, even as he signed the bill we still weren’t sure what all was in it. As LBJ himself once told me, never watch hogs slaughtered before breakfast and never, never, never show young children how legislation gets enacted.
But Lyndon Johnson had warned: "We will face a new challenge and that will be what to do within our economy to adjust ourselves to a life span and a work span for the average man or woman of 100 years."
That longevity, and the cost, are what we must now reckon with. As the historian Robert Dallek has written, Medicare and Medicaid, the similar program for the very poor, "…did not solve the problem of care at reasonable cost for all Americans", but "the benefits to the elderly and the indigent…are indisputable." And there’s no going back, current efforts notwithstanding. A new study in the journal Health Affairs finds that Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and older are more satisfied with their health insurance, have better access to care, and are less likely to have problems paying medical bills than working-age adults who get insurance through employers or purchase coverage on their own.
So sing on, Raging Grannies, sing on. The surest way to save so popular and efficient a health care system is to make it available to everyone.
RAGING GRANNIES: Everybody in and nobody out, single-payer Medicare for all.
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Comments
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Rage on, everyone. We're all required to pay into Medicare and now they want to take it away from us instead of trying to figure out how to make it available to all in this failing economy.
Republicans must be put out to pasture, if that's the way they want to roll. Everything they do is against you and me, the common everyday American who just wants to be healthy enough to contribute to building a better World for ourselves and our children and grandchildren.
Medicare for all would be the best legacy we could leave them with.
Thanks.
N.
Update: Sorry, a third thing will fix it: put all politicians on Medicaid! Take away their golden policy!!!
The proposed first step to achieve that objective is to file multiple class-action lawsuits seeking to reverse two absurd Supreme Court decisions: Santa Clara ("corporations are persons"), and Buckley ("money is speech"). Success will require one of the five conservative Justices to again step forward and go down in history as a true American patriot, as did Chief Justice Roberts recently in upholding Obamneycare.
As the cases advance toward the Supreme Court, widening public awareness of them will propel a tsunami of public pressure, outcry, and support from the over 80% of American citizenry who are disgusted with the legalized corruption of our politicians by the obscene amounts of money-in-politi cs. Past Supreme Courts have been responsive to public opinion.
Once those decisions are reversed, the liberated Congress would be enabled to enact legislation in the public interest, such as to provide for public financing of elections, free airtime for candidates, universal health care, raising needed revenue from those who can best afford to provide it, and exerting world leadership in preventing and mitigating global warming.
You can e-mail me via the Web site at my RSN Profile Page.
Great letter,Robert Cohen, finally with a solution rather than just name caling, albeit with well-earned names. It is scary to think we have to rely on the Supreme Court judges,but then the idea of class-action lawsuits provides a superb path to educate the public on what is really happening all around us.
What would the lawsuits be, and how does one work toward initiating them?
spenel334
Members of Congress are eligible for a pension when 50, IF they've completed 20 years of service. Members are eligible at any age after completing 25 years of service or after they reach the age of 62. Please note: Members of Congress MUST serve at least 5 years to receive a pension.
The congressperson' s pension depends on years of service and the average of the highest 3 years of his/ her salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member's retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.
According to the Congressional Research Service, 413 retired Members of Congress were receiving federal pensions based fully or in part on their congressional service as of Oct. 1, 2006. Of this number, 290 had retired under CSRS and were receiving an average annual pension of $60,972. A total of 123 Members had retired with service under both CSRS and FERS or with service under FERS only. Their average annual pension was $35,952 in 2006.
So medical care and salary is under the same rules of other federal employees.
An example: I pay Almost 6,012.00 a year for 2 while the USPS pays $10,773.00. The health insurance makes a goodly sum and it IS a struggle to pay my share of health insurance which is pushing for me to get Medicare as well. I say MEDICARE for all. C
Only because of some bizarre and idiotic stipulation that the USPS pay FORWARD Millions of dollars to cover foreseeable Pensions(?). This is madness and almost insures that they will go broke. No other Federal Agency has that kind of onerous mandate....? I may have that wrong but it's something similar...Anybo dy?
You're right, Angelfish. The whole idea is to make the USPS look like it's broke. So now the GOP can start calling for postal layoffs and office closures. Why? The postal union is the government's largest, and ever since Reagan and the air traffic controllers union, the GOP has been trying to get rid of all public unions. You can bet that when Republicans pay attention to a gov't function, the ultimate goal is to destroy it. Part D Medicare and No Child's Behind Left are just 2 examples.
So those who want to change the Post Office that provides service at cost to a business model neglect to mention before HR6407 was passed in 2006 the Post Office was able to pay mail processing and delivery costs with it's revenue. It wasn't defaulting on anything.
The following videos i made for You Tube explain this. To view just copy the link and paste in the Google search window.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09ybkkiH2Ho
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am4wez1ShPY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsPIY9bFFZY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-chx0j3_8IU
I think everyone knows this excessive benefit funding requirement is what's causing the PO to look like it's insolvent, so I want to know what congressperson (or group -- as in the Postal regulating committee mentioned above) is preventing the fix, & who's in their pocket....
If they shut this Post Office down, where will I get my mail? UPS couldn't find us if I painted a red X on the dirt road. FEDEX dropped a package labeled TO FRONT DOOR half mile down the road. Only the Post Office knows where we are. I trust them.
So how does shutting down the Post Office make America BETTER? It doesn't.
This is one more of the Republicans stupid ideas.
The Republicans already want to make our water dirtier, our food dirtier, our air dirtier - if ignorance is bliss, these guys are blissing out!
One of the Rmoney empty-headed gaffes while he was in Israel was to praise their health care system - saying that their system uses only 8% of GDP while ours absorbs 18% of GDP. I don't think he realizes yet that he was praising public health care. Of course no one in our media took him to task for it. Just as private insurance companies are not needed for student loans, they are certainly not needed in health care. Something's wrong when one man (McGuire at United Health Care) takes home $1.7 BILLION in compensation, and the industry's executive-to-wo rker pay is the highest of all industries.
I'd bet a bundle Willard and Ann have their very own concierge doctor on retainer, along with VIP access to the Mayo Clinic. All 535 members of Congress have the best employer-sponso red health care on the planet. The Obamas have the best coverage money can buy. Gainfully employed citizens with a health insurance benefit can pick their own doc and/or plan in the city or the suburbs; I was fortunate to have that kind of ample coverage of my family for many years, including 18 months of very expensive extended coverage under COBRA when I was laid off from my last job, before I retired. But what about the 50 million Americans without any insurance, now? What about my 23 year old college grad son, who was covered by me from birth to 18, then at college for 4 years (on his parent's dime), then by my ex-wife under her plan, but now not at all because she and I went onto Medicare, can no longer cover him as a dependent, and he can't find a decent job, let alone one with health benefits, or afford his own individual coverage? A pox on every member of Congress until this mess is fixed. Universal health care!
Absolutely -and any other country with a smidgeon of social consciousness remaining which the US has NEVER had for the most part (I'm Scottish).
But try telling that to those in the corridors of power who, not content with the kind of salaries most Americans will never even come close to and get the kind of health care that their constituents, or their employers, will never be able to afford but who also have their pockets so heavily lined with corporate lobbyist lucre, it's a wonder that the can keep their pants (or panty hose) from bulging and falling to the ground!
We are the sacrificial lambs on the power-bloodied altars to themselves and their masters of war, profit, greed and pollution.
Good for them, bad for us.
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative". She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
Perhaps in time the so-called dark ages will be thought of as including our own.
--Georg C. Lichtenberg
It upsets me to no end when I hear people bring up the "death panels" argument against universal coverage. We already have death panels but we call them insurance companies. BTW, my mom was denied a bone marrow transplant because, at 55, she was "too old".
It doesn't cover Dental at all, which is a problem most people will face when they get older, nor vision ditto, and it only pays 80% of hospital and physician costs which can amount to quite a bit if you are admitted to hospital or a mental institution that even accepts Medicare for any amount of time, especially if S.S. is the main or only source of income -and if you want Part B (Doctor visits) or Part C (RX) quite a bit is deducted from the S.S. monthly amount.
And all the other little add-ons are still a gift to big insurance and pharma' (and AARP), which they are never done pestering you with when you approach or pass Medicare age.
This is why I've never become a citizen and plan to return to Europe a.s.a.p. before I'm too much older.
And then you've got the Tea-Bastard ignoramuses who bolster the GOP's mean-spirited attempts to reduce or cut alltogether what's left, as in "Keep the government's hands off my medicare!!!" -And I quote.
Again, "Only in America" where the Military-Indust rial-Prison complex can get all it wants to kill, maim and pollute the planet and the wealthy receive munificent breaks even unto zero taxation, but where the power-soaked-an d lobbyist-bought seem scared to death that the average citizen or resident gets even a tithe more than the bare minimum WHICH THY'VE BEEN PAYING FOR all their working lives.
A Death Culture indeed!
I'm tired of being treated like a child. Conservatives do NOT "know" what's good for us. They just know what's good for them and their lobbyists.
Perhaps if they paid more attention to the American people and less to the insurance companies, they'd actually get some work done.
Even if he had to eventually back down, the public debate could have changed our POLITICAL CULTURE. Gutless Obama wildly under uses his greatest asset: he is a fabulous explainer. But only if he's had a green light from corporate sponsors to speak. He has to raise his hand & beg PERMISSION. Tragedy.
We currently have over 50 million US citizens without healthcare. 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32% increase from 2008. As bankruptcies continue to skyrocket, medical bankruptcies are responsible for over 60% of them, and over 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have healthcare insurance. We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world, we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world.
Now I always recall that famous clip of him being hurried along by Merrill-Lynch's Donald Regan at the opening of the stock exchange like a dumb cow. I really disliked Reagan as President. He should have stuck to being an actor, but even there he had to rat our his fellow actors for political power.
The amendment was killed by Republicans. What's good for them is apparently bad for us...
Interesting to note the comments made by Ronnie Reagan. One has to wonder how he is considered a hero in the GOP. One also has to wonder how any American could support a Republican for any office based on their shameless attacks on the rights of citizens. They still bear the banners for the 1% and not the people of America.
Let's carry on the fight for "Medicare for All." Americans deserve better.
obama has the right ideas, he is just not as capable or a strong a worker as LBJ was.
And this business of drbbling out his papers even to today - keeping the real truth from Americans that has now become the way we do business is really cheating all of us. We all deserve to know what is going on.
He sacrificed his domestic goals, his "Great Society" to pay for the killing of, ultimately, millions of Asians. He was a promising president (most are!) but turned into a bloody murderer.
The idea that public knowledge of what is going on would change anything is an idea that belongs to a lost, highly flawed democracy. The latter no longer exists. Johnson's Asian War ended US wars based on conscription. We have now a different model: mercenaries derived from the unemployed. Even that is being transformed by digital-warfare , drones, missiles. When citizen soldiers are no longer needed for the empire, democracy can be dispensed with. The Bill of Rights becomes a threat to the ruling class. An educated populace is not needed. Schools can be trashed. What is needed is a police-state to keep order among a large population in a land of social mobility. That is what we have, thanks to GWB and BHO, a police-state with bases all around the world, from the South China Sea to Central Asia.
Excellent point and thanks for that reminder.
Let's get it out there!
He set the model for the lying destroyers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights who have since occupied the White House. He was forced by MLK to open the polls to blacks. What persuaded him? Was it MLK's pleas? No! It was his understanding that he could not pretend to lead the free world in wars of imperialism when in the US there was a constant state of civil chaos because of the subjugation of blacks in the south.
For Johnson and for all our presidents since WWII, what counted was the projection of US power abroad. He was a betrayer not only of the Great Society but of a decent society, just as his successors have been, including the worst of all, Barack Obama.
I was in middle school at the time and we would conduct debates on current events/issues. One was the pending legislation for Medicare. I was against it as so many others were since we were not totally informed or had kept ourselves ignorant of what it entailed.
We pointed out the 'evil' of socialized medicine, etc.
My mother was exasperated with me reminding me that we were too 'poor' to be against such a program.
So it is today as Medicare and Medicaid are under attack; I hear so many similar comments of surprising intensity.The same goes for the recently upholding by The US Supreme Court of "Affordable Healthcare Act". So much bickering from People who should know better. Goes to show you; people have very short memories.
I was watching early on one of the debates by the Republican contenders on the recently passed "Affordable Healthcare Act". This particular group of voters seemed specifically against it; why was it not clear, but when someone else interjected "What should we do with the indigent"
The overwhelming majority shouted, "Let 'em die". I'm sure that attitude may pass in Texas, but it does not fly with me.
Sincerely,
Wilma
That will remain the truth unless we can force them to care. How we do that, I haven't figured out.
spenel334
The IMD Exclusion, was enacted along with the Community Mental Health Act of 1964 to get people who could live in the community out of the hospitals. It only allowed the states to receive reimbursement for community treatment. The idea was to give the states the incentive to move who could live in the community out of the hospitals, but the community mental health centers that were promised did not materialize, patients who were/are still delusional were/are released into unsupervised housing environments, and the discharge process is too fragmented. Now, most of the most seriously ill are homeless, incarcated, or dead. Medicare For All would remove the barriers to appropriate treatment for SMI, and save lives!
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