continued…

A brief history of Medicare (government run health care for older/retired persons) & Medicaid (government run health care for “indigents”/poor persons) is in order at this point so as to provide historical perspective.
 
As early as 1915 there were efforts made by various political groups and individuals to establish some form of government sponsored health care in the United States.  1945 President Harry Truman proposed legislation that would establish a “national health insurance plan”.  Over the next 2 decades the issue was debated back and forth.  Ultimately a plan for “universal coverage” (i.e.: complete socialism in the realm of health care) was dropped and proponents worked for a “limited plan”.  In 1950 and in 1960 laws were passed in Congress that allowed Federal funds to be used in certain limited contexts to pay for health care for poor and/or elderly people.  In 1965, under President Lyndon Johnson, Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law as part of the “Great Society” program.  (That term deserves its own little aside.  The “greatness” of the program was understood to be, “Wasn’t it ‘great’ that we could give money and health care to poor and old people because they didn’t have any money and therefore couldn’t afford health care?”  The fact that it was legalized theft didn’t seem to bother too many people at the time.)
 
When Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law it was claimed that these were “wonderful programs” that would help the “little people”, the “poor and downtrodden”, the “forgotten, helpless on the fringes of our wealthy society that have fallen through the cracks”.  The general public was assured that these programs would be kept to a minimum and that the costs would easily be covered by existing government revenues (taxes and bonds).  There was no need to think these programs would get “out of hand”.  No, in fact they would help people by “giving them a leg up” or “help them out of a hole”.  I even found one old source that went on and on about how the programs would “pay for themselves” by making sure “everyone in the country was healthy”.
 
That last part sounds familiar, yes?  Like the people now claiming that it is somehow in “our best interest” to provide people without insurance with insurance through some national health care scheme.