77-24-A6
- Main Page \ Reagan Radio Commentaries \ 1977
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National Health Insurance I[edit]
Transcript[edit]With energy, the SALT talks, and the Panama Canal so much in the news, you might not have noticed that National health insurance is moving up on the outside. I'll be right back. For purposes of clarity and outright honesty in discussing proposed National health insurance plans, I shall refer to them as socialized medicine, for that's what is really being proposed. A series of regional meetings sponsored by the Department of H.E.W has been scheduled and the first one took place recently in Washington. The hearings, of course, have to do with socialized medicine for America. If the Washington meeting was an indication of things to come, the only question to be decided is which proposal for socializing healthcare do we get. There didn't seem to be anyone present putting in a plug for the system we've been using, which happens to offer the best medical care in the world. Let me ask you, do you think there's a health care crisis in the United States? If the polls are correct, 9 out of 10 of you first said, “Yes.” But now let me ask you about yourself, do you have ready access to a doctor if you need one? Are you relatively near to hospitals or medical centers if you should be in need of the services they offer? Would it be impossible for you to get medical help in a reasonable time in case of an emergency? Again, if the polls are correct 9 out of 10 of you answered, “Yes” to those questions. in other words, 9 out of 10 of you have been conned into believing there is a health care crisis, but 9 out of 10 of you think it applies to someone else. We have the highest ratio of doctors and nurses to patients in all the world. Less than one half of one percent of our people live in counties where there is no hospital or medical treatment center, but most of those aren't more than 25 miles from such a facility. The L.A. Times recently ran a pro-con set of articles on socialized medicine. They used the other name for it. The advocate for it ranted about greed in the health care field. He ended up with proposals for tens of thousands of new doctors and nurses, all trained at taxpayer’s expense. Every doctor and dentist on government salary. Public ownership of all drug and medical equipment companies and then said all of this could be provided for only 80 percent of present health care costs. That must have been his laugh line. Total health care costs last year were $140 billion, a tidy sum, but Senator Kennedy and Congressman Corman's plan is priced by H.E.W. at 248 billion. The second most popular plan and what which I'm sorry to say some defeatists in the medical association have caved in on would cost 243 billion. Then there's one the insurance companies think they could live with, and perhaps on, which would cost 234.5 billion. All of these are from studies by H.E.W. which of course is heart and soul in favor of socialized medicine and yet our crisis-ridden present health care system costs around a hundred billion dollars less than the best government can come up with. Maybe there's a clue to these contrasting prices in some statistics about patient in government-run hospitals and in private hospitals. Medical patients spend an average of eight days in private hospitals the same kind of patient in our Veteran’s hospitals linger 26 and a half days. Nursing cost per private patient average 218 dollars. In the VA hospitals, it is 580 of our tax dollars. Why don't we let well enough alone? This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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