Rhetoric of Fear The Death of the California Dream Health Care in Perspective The Discipline Leave No Child Behind No Daddy, No! Unconditional Equal Justice under the Law Thank God I Am Not A Woman Infallible "Don't ask, don't tell" Thou Shalt Not Kill Irreconcilable Differences My Will Positive Reinforcement Changing My Name After Sixty Years Copyright © 2000-2009 Thomas E. Rosenberg. All right reserved. Essays may be reproduced with written permission. tomr@inaword.org

The elimination of negative words brings clarity to speech Health Care in Perspective The first presidential candidate to acknowledge that health care was a national problem was the retired President Theodore Roosevelt. He made that an issue in the 1912 election, for him a political comeback, as the nominee of the Bull Moose Party that he originated to counter the ultra-conservative incumbent President Robert Taft. Woodrow Wilson, the Democrats nominee, and Roosevelt ran as progressives in a mean-spirited campaign that Wilson won, Roosevelt came in second, and Taft ran a weak third. In 1934, the author Upton Sinclair ran for Governor of California on an “End Poverty In California” (EPIC) platform. Sinclair, ex-Socialist, won the Democratic nomination in a heated primary. In the general election the business community and the American Medical Association mounted an ugly, emotional, red-baiting campaign, against Sinclair. That campaign also included ”film-reels” shown in movie houses that depicted Sinclair supporters as “socialist pro-soviets” and smear allegations planted in newspapers alleged that Sinclair seduced young girls. In 1935, fearing opposition from the AMA would threaten approval of pending Social Security Legislation, President Franklin Roosevelt deferred his program for publicly funded health programs. In 1949, a reorganized and more aggressive AMA fought the National Health Insurance plans of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. That, too, was an ugly campaign. It featured a recorded and filmed speech by Ronald Reagan that called national health care the first step to socialism. Sound familiar? Ironically, the business community that opposed national health care saw some self-serving benefits from promoting health insurance. Wage were frozen in the aftermath of WW II and the business community used “health insurance” as a benefit to circumvent wage controls. This gave birth to Blue Cross and other charitable based providers of health insurance. The opposition to national health care took a decided partisan bent in 1991. Then House Speaker Newt Gingrich identified the "next great offensive of the Left will be socialized health care." Gingrich is now the chief spokesman for the Behavorial Health Center a leading opponent of the Obama Administration’s Health Plan. In a 1993 strategy memo then Republican Minority Leader Dick Armey wrote that “. . .Democrats were launching a final desperate gambit to win permanent loyalty of the great middle class through dependency on a massive new government entitlement. On the outcome of this gambit hangs the future, not only of the Republican party, but of every American citizen.” Armey is now chairman of the Freedom Works a proponent of smaller government and lower taxes Every political operative is taught in Campaign 101 that it’s easier to get voters to vote against an issue than for it. In 1993, the health care industry sponsored the “Harry and Louise” commercials which railed against government getting between the patient and doctors. Today’s campaign against Health Care Reform touts America as having the best health care system in the world. The opponents of a health plan that includes a public option warn such competition to the private health insurance companies would increase taxes, raise health care costs, threaten coverage people already have; raise the national debt; use tax payer funds to cover abortions and promote “death panels” of administrators who would advocate euthanasia for elderly patients -- a steady diet of distortion. Some 100 years after Teddy Roosevelt identified health care as a national problem the number of people living in poverty has grown to 39.1 million. This includes 14.1 million children of which 6.3 million live in extreme poverty. The number of people without health insurance are estimated to be 47 million. The legislators in opposition are all covered by generous federal health insurance and voted to fund a war with costs omitted from the federal budget. They cater to the same old fears successfully used 100 years ago. posted November 2009.