75-13-A4
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Socialized Medicine II[edit]
Transcript[edit]Yesterday I promised to talk some more about the campaign to give us socialized medicine.—I’ll be right back. It’s funny (or would be if it weren’t so serious) how far a little propaganda can go. A national poll was taken a little while back on the subject of health care. More than one-quarter of those polled stated flat out that “yes there was a health care crisis in America." But then the pollsters got down to specifics. They asked for personal examples such as “Do you have ready access to medical care?” “Are you satisfied with your Doctor?” “Do you have any delay in getting medical attention when you need it?” etc. etc. To these specific questions about 90% or better answered no—they themselves had no problems. In other words they’d read and heard so much about a crisis in the health field they took it for granted that one existed. But when their own situation was questioned there was no crisis. It only existed for some one else but they didn’t really know who. Again it’s that mysterious “they” we’re always hearing about. One of the arguments used to support the claim that we need government medicine is comparison of infant mortality figures. A favorite comparison to is the U.S. rate and the rate in Sweden.1 Unfortunately they never tell us that no two countries are the same in their determining infant mortality. In America we register every birth and base the rate on stillborn children as well as all who die in their first year. Sweden by contrast doesn’t require a report of birth until after 5 years. Nevertheless the Senator from Massachusetts2 I referred to yesterday who is off has been preaching government medicine for years charges us with having a progressive rate of deterioration. That isn’t quite the case. In 20 years infant mortality in the U.S. has declined by 33%. Obviously we are improving not deteriorating. That is also evident from the figures at the other end of the line. Our life span at the beginning of the century was 49 yrs. Today it is 70. If we want to continue comparing our system with Sweden there are long waiting lists there for all kinds of hospitalization. In Stockholm alone 4000—1800 of them for surgery. Minor operations have a waiting time of more than 6 months. As for costs when Sweden converted from volunteer health insurance to government provided coverage it only took 12 yrs. for the total cost to increase to 9X what it had been. The same story can be told with regard to England. More than 40% of the hospitals are over 100 yrs. old. Only 3 new hospitals have been built in Eng. since 1948. A woman having a baby will not have it in a hospital nor will a doctor be in attendance. She will have it at home helped by a mid-wife unless it is her first or her doctor claims she has a problem posing considerable risk. The question we should ask is, who besides some politicians and some believers in more government is really asking for socialized medicine? Just as a side issue—call it another example of bureaucracy the Department of Health, Education and Welfare is now inspecting our hospitals. In one relatively new hospital they demanded that plastic bag liners in waste paper baskets be removed. If they caught fire they might develop dangerous toxic fumes. O.S.H.A.—the Occupational Safety and Health Agency had just been there and they ordered the hospital to put in the bags to save the employees. from the risk of contamination in emptying the waste baskets. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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