Past Is Prologue: Ronald Reagan On Medicare In 1961…Sound Familiar?

I’ve heard this recording mentioned, and played, a number of times over the past few days by both sides of the debate. In 1961, then private citizen Ronald Reagan recorded an LP for the AMA to protest Medicare which was distributed across the country. In it he describes the Medicare bill as threatening the very fabric of American life.

“We do not want socialized medicine…behind it will come other government programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until one day as Norman Thomas said we will wake to find that we have socialism…We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

Sound familiar? A slightly gentler tone, and a different medium, but the message is basically the same. Which should either reassure or frighten you, depending. Audio below.

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