Today in our local newspaper, a letter to the editor
bemoaned the “Socialism” of President Obama and the threat of institutionalized
socialism if Hillary Clinton were to be elected. I am relatively certain that the writer
accepts his Social Security check each month. I am also relatively certain that
the real bone of contention is what the writer probably views as “socialized
medicine”, more correctly referred to as the Affordable care Act (ACA).
In point of fact, US
medicine has been socialized since the year 1986, and it was done at the urging
of that icon of liberalism, President
Ronald Reagan who signed a Republican sponsored bill called the Emergency Medical Treatment
and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) into law.
Prior to 1986,
hospitals, doctors, and emergency rooms could turn a dying person away at the
door if they didn’t have money, or refuse to treat them. .
In 1986, a Republican Congress and President passed EMTALA. It
socialized healthcare and made emergency rooms just like police, or firemen, or
roads. It said people patients presenting at an ER dying “could not be refused” treatment.
Prior to EMTALA “patient
dumping,” (refusal to treat due to inability to pay or insufficient insurance, or
transferring or discharging emergency patients on the basis of high anticipated
diagnosis and treatment costs was common.
This sort of callous indifference, caught the attention of
the CBS investigative show 60 Minutes, which, in early 1985, aired “The Billfold Biopsy,” an study of the about
the dumping of unstabilized patients at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
In simplest
terms: Congress and President Reagan (via EMTALA) set up hospital emergency rooms
as socialized healthcare, and then didn’t fund them. It was (and is) an
unfunded mandate. So it’s illegal to let patients die on your doorstep. Reagan saw
it as a step forward, and said it aligned “American’s Christian principles” and
his own.
As a result, many Americans
with no health care insurance use emergency rooms as care (to which they’re
legally allowed. Unable to recoup the cost of these (far pricer, usually then
an office visit) services, hospitals got
clever at burying costs into healthy patient’s procedures, or anywhere else.
(Wonder why your insured procedures are billed at such high costs?)
In summary: We
already have socialized healthcare, it’s just that hospitals, the government, and insurance companies
all put their fingers on their noses and
saying ‘not it!’ due to that single fact: the 1986 bill was an unfunded
mandate. And, of course, one way or another, we do pay for it. We pay for it
via taxes, higher costs of procedures, and a mountain of red tape caused by this
giant game of ‘not it.’
Beginning immediately
after her husband’s inauguration, and at
his request, Hillary Clinton researched
means of creating a way to pay for it,
so that all citizens chipped in. Somehow, though, (the masses were told) it all seemed too “socialized.” The Heritage
Foundation, a very Conservative think tank) suggested that all citizens just be forced to carry
health insurance, and that if it cost too much for poor people the government
chip in a little. This was the genesis and in its implication, the foundation for the Massachusetts model,
instituted by Governor Mitt Romney , and then (like a pregnant hooker) disavowed by candidate Mitt Romney
later, and while not perfect, was a vast improvement over the existing
situation created by EMTALA.
The Affordable Care Act (ridiculed as “Obamacare” by the
ignorant who don’t recognize the origins) imitates the Heritage and
Massachusetts model. But, of course was fought, tooth and nail, and continues to be fought by regressives
like Florida Governor Rick Scott and the anti-Obama Tea Party folk because, “it’s socialism!”
No, my children, “socialized
medicine” arrived in America in1986.
What was being fought over is the decision of “will we now be fiscally responsible about the
socialized medicine that Ronald Reagan signed into law or will we continue
using the unfair and expensive, unfunded mandate via emergency room payment
system that has been a mess since 1986?’
The Tea Party and
other House Republicans claimed to be fighting socialized healthcare. If they
were, their ideological position would at least have a foundation and basis in
a logical social stance. But none of
them filibustered or tried to repeal EMTALA
So stopping the government, all the misery and the high,
high cost of last Fall’s shutdown to the economy, occurred merely because Republicans refused to pay for
a mandate their party created in 1986. If you’re a Republican or Tea Partier and not campaigning against EMTALA, you can’t
be taken seriously if you say you’re
fighting socialized medicine, because you’re not, you’re just fighting to not
have to pay for it.
Right now, ACA lets
freelancers and people in between jobs get healthcare. It lets people outside
of large corporations get healthcare. It lets small businessmen get healthcare.
It makes the practice of insurers dumping people with preexisting conditions
illegal. Bases on the experiences of personal friends and acquaintances, It
makes it easy to find a healthcare package.
And people want to
try to stop it. Because it might help people not have to wait until they’re
hurting in front of the emergency room to get the benefit of that 1986 law,
it’ll let people start taking care of themselves ahead of time. It’s been
working in one state (Massachusetts) very well for a long time. It works well in
other countries. We know how the ground game goes.
One group has done everything they can to stop it, because this compilation
of methods to change how the 1986 law is
handled society-wide came from someone they didn’t vote for, and in their
misguided spite, they are prepared to hurt millions. It’s one of the most
ignorant, misguided, childish episodes in American political history.
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