Media Matters for America

REPORT: Limbaugh conservatives continue 75-year-old "socialized medicine" smear

March 05, 2009 12:11 pm ET

SUMMARY: As President Obama lays the groundwork for releasing his plan to reform the country's health-care system, Rush Limbaugh responds on cue with a pre-emptive attempt to undermine reform efforts with the tired smear of "socialized medicine." Just how tired? Very -- it is at least three-quarters of a century old. Media Matters found that as far back as the 1930s -- with respect to at least 16 different proposals -- conservatives have volleyed attacks on progressive efforts at health-care reform with the clichéd -- and false -- label of "socialized medicine."

Rush Limbaugh claimed during his February 27 morning radio update that "[t]he Obama budget ... funds the relentless drive toward socialized medicine" -- a statement that is neither accurate nor original. In fact, as the Urban Institute wrote in an April 2008 analysis, "socialized medicine involves government financing and direct provision of health care services," and therefore, progressive health-care reform proposals do not "fit this description." The analysis also noted: "Similar rhetoric was used to defeat national health care reform proposals in the 1990s and, with less success, to argue against the creation of Medicare in the 1960s." Indeed, a Media Matters for America analysis found that dating as far back as the 1930s -- with respect to at least 16 different reform initiatives -- conservatives have attempted to smear those proposals by calling them "socialized medicine" or a step toward that inevitable result.

These reform efforts include President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's consideration of government health insurance when crafting the 1935 Social Security bill; President Lyndon Johnson's 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act establishing Medicare; President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton's health-care initiative in 1993 and 1994; the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997, as well as its 2007 reauthorization and 2009 expansion; Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's health-care proposals during the 2008 presidential campaign; health information technology provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; and health-care provisions included in President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget blueprint.

Conservatives will undoubtedly persist in using the rhetoric of "socialized medicine" as the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress move forward with health-care reform. As The New York Times' Mark Leibovich reported in a February 28 Week in Review piece headlined " 'Socialism!' Boo, Hiss, Repeat," conservative commentator and Conservative Political Action Conference "celebrity" Bay Buchanan said that " '[s]ocialized medicine' was a great argument for us" in defeating the Clintons' health-care reform effort. Leibovich added that Buchanan "not[ed] that the term will surely gain even more of a hold when the Obama administration unveils its own health care proposal, probably sometime this year" [emphasis added]. The knee-jerk -- and false -- accusation once again poses a decision for the media: Will they simply repeat the charges without challenge, or will they undertake a considered analysis of its underpinnings and its accuracy? Recent indications are not favorable.

History is replete with examples of health-care reform opponents reflexively lobbing the charge "socialized medicine" at any and all progressive reform proposals:

Roosevelt's consideration of government health insurance when crafting the 1935 Social Security bill

Truman's health-care reform proposal (the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill)

Kennedy's health-care reform proposal (the Anderson-King bill)

Johnson's 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act establishing Medicare

Clinton's 1992 campaign health-care proposal

The Clintons' 1993 health-care initiative

Creation of SCHIP in 1997

Gore's 2000 campaign health-care plan

2001 Patients Bill of Rights

Kerry's 2004 campaign health-care plan

MD's 2005 proposal requiring Wal-Mart to pay increased health benefits

2007 SCHIP reauthorization

2008 campaign health-care proposals by Obama and Clinton

2009 SCHIP expansion

Health information technology provisions in 2009 economic recovery package

Obama's 2010 budget blueprint

From the December 16, 1993, edition of Limbaugh's television show, Rush Limbaugh (retrieved from the Nexis news database):

LIMBAUGH: All right. Let me just tell you something very quickly. I don't have time to beat around the bush. The health-care plan as proposed by Mrs. Clinton is socialism. There's no soft way to peddle it. There is not other way to describe it. The only way it'll "work" as drawn is if socialism -- now I use "work" in quotes because socialism doesn't work -- but the only chance this plan has is if it is under the -- the aegis of socialism. So make no mistake about it. I mean, it's taking one seventh of the American economy and transferring it to government control. That is socialism.

From the December 27, 1993, edition of Rush Limbaugh (from Nexis):

LIMBAUGH: People have to oppose this philosophically. You have to say, I don't want any part of this.' You can't let the agenda be set by the administration because socialized medicine is not the solution. The private sector -- the free market can do this better and more efficiently with more freedom and more choice for all of you. And there are plenty of great alternatives out there, and I think people are beginning to note and -- and -- and -- and become aware of this because of the polling data showing so little support for this as presented.

From the April 4, 1994, edition of Rush Limbaugh (from Nexis):

LIMBAUGH: The White House -- ah, here are the details, ladies and -- see, this is why you watch this show. This is buried in The Washington Post. We found it. Now the world will know. "The White House this week cut back the coverage for drug and alcohol treatment in its health-care plan to hold down costs." And th-- and -- and -- and critics then charged that this could undermine one of the principle goals of President Clinton's anti-drug strategy. And if you read the story further, they're also going to reduce health-care funding for the mentally ill.

Now, why do we show you this? We show you this because they'll say anything in the world to hook you. They'll paint the best picture of love, devotion, compassion and care -- why, it's a candy store, America. Go in and it's all free. Then when it comes down to the nutcracking time, it all seems to vanish and go away, and we're going to chronicle all of these discrepancies, from the promises to the reality, because this health-care plan is all about the destruction of the creation of wealth in America and the socialization of this country, and it won't work -- never has anywhere else -- and we're going to go to the mat here to see to it that they don't succeed.

From the May 20, 2005, broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: They [the Maryland General Assembly] are legislating socialism. This is the government -- in this case the state government -- telling a private business how it must run its affairs. Now, some might even call that a vestige of fascism. Some might say you're getting very close to fascism here when the government starts telling everybody in business -- at an increasing rate -- how they have to run their business, allocate funds, and so forth. And it's almost extortion to boot, because if Wal-Mart doesn't do what the legislature says -- then the legislature must -- then Wal-Mart must pay the legislature. So it's -- they're legislating socialism at the Maryland legislature.

From the September 17, 2007, broadcast (subscription required) of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: But the Rocky Mountain News says: "We've spelled out some of our objections to the single-payer plan in an earlier editorial, and we haven't changed our minds. But let's assume that this system indeed guaranteed medical coverage for every resident. And that its 15-member governing board, which will have 'constitutional powers to contain costs'..." Do you realize, constitutional powers to contain costs? "Let's assume that this single-payer plan actually did keep overall medical spending in check. Such fiscal discipline would come with an unacceptable price: dramatic compromises in the breadth and quality of care. Say the plan initially reduced overall medical expenses by the 11 percent Lewin suggests, by wringing out administrative inefficiencies and purchasing prescription drugs in bulk. After that, however, new costs pile up in a hurry. For one thing, single payer would immediately increase the number of Coloradans with guaranteed coverage by 19 percent." Are you losing me on this, Mr. Snerdley? You lost me the other day. You thought that I was reading a story written by Melinda Gates, and it wasn't.

What you are missing here? Well, I'm getting to the bottom line, is that you have the single payer proponents. Tying this to Mrs. Clinton, she's a single payer advocate. The government's going to be the single payer. It's going to be socialized medicine, national health care in Colorado, they're doing this, they're proposing four different ballot initiatives, and the people on the side of single payer out there obviously have a leg up because they're out there with all these stats saying, "Hey, it would have cost 4.7 less this year if we'd had had single payer." What this editorial is trying to say is, "Nope, it's going to add costs right off the bat," because, in the first place, bureaucracies never become efficient; they're never going to get rid of administrative costs; they're never going to reduce them. That's not the purpose of bureaucracies. It's to increase those things.

From the October 16, 2007, broadcast (subscription required) of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: As it is at present currently structured, the Graeme family [sic] was covered. The Graeme family is out there on television [makes whining noises], "[unintelligible] President Bush [unintelligible]." No. President Bush is not trying to deny coverage to people like the Graemes. And this other woman -- that little kid that they're -- the Democrats are now parading out -- also covered by the current structure of the SCHIPS [sic] program.

But I just -- I think this is fabulous news out here that -- the drive-bys have done everything they can to push this whole notion of socialized medicine, to rip the president as being heartless and cold and cruel to children. And yet -- see, this is why you gotta celebrate the new media, folks, and people like me, because, 20 years ago, this would have happened, and there wouldn't have been any opposition to it whatsoever, and you would not know the truth, and you would believe what the media is telling you -- well, some of you would. I mean, there's always been a sizable contingent of people out there that didn't trust the drive-by media.

From an October 11, 2007, "Rush to Excellence Speech for WPHT-AM Philadelphia" (subscription required):

LIMBAUGH: It's a matter of simple responsibility. But we're getting to the point of mob rule. You get to the point where 55 or 60 percent of the American people think that other people -- government, whoever -- should be buying their health care, it's essentially mob rule. And that's, you know, that's -- unless, if the elected representatives -- well, we know Mrs. Clinton wants to do this. SCHIP is her plan. It's an expansion. And it's a stealth mechanism to put the tentacles of socialized medicine even deeper into society. Under the expansion of SCHIP -- by the way, President Bush voted to expand it for 4 billion to include poor kids only. The Senate version, the House version, the Mrs. Clinton version, defines a child as anybody 25 years or younger. I'm not making this up.

From the August 3, 2007, broadcast (subscription required) of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: You have to establish priorities. If health care is the most important thing to you, then you gotta do -- regard -- wherever you are now, you've got to do with less. There are -- somewhere else. You're asking your neighbors to subsidize your insurance for your -- for health care. This program that you're talking about, the SCHIP program -- that's SCHIP with a P -- is a stealth maneuver by the Democrats to take us further down the road to nationalized, socialized medicine, which will be an abject failure. It will not be free. You may not be paying for it yourself, but you'll also suffer in the kind of coverage that you get and treatment that you get.

From the January 25, 2008, edition (subscription required) of "Rush's Morning Update":

LIMBAUGH: According to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Brown and Harvard universities found that women will not get tested if they have to pay for it. You heard right: Breast cancer screening rates are dramatically lower when women have to contribute a co-payment.

We're not talking a lot of money here, folks. I mean, most insurance plans ask for a $20 co-pay. But even when the payment is as little as $12, there are significant drops in the number who get screened. So the researchers advocate the elimination of all co-payments. Of course.

Every liberal on the campaign trail has a plan to deliver free, socialized medicine, but no country on earth, folks, can possibly pay for every test for everybody without going bankrupt. Yet, as this study demonstrates, the entitlement mentality is so pervasive regarding health care that even 12 measly dollars is too high a price to save your life for people who are already insured. If it's not free, it's not worth it?

From the February 9 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Everybody assumes that the Obama administration's health plan -- the health reform, the gigantic national socialization of medicine bill -- is going to be a standalone to come down the pike, and everybody's especially thinking now it's been delayed since the Puffster [Tom Daschle] pulled himself out of consideration at Health and Human Services for not paying taxes. That is not true. Betsy McCaughey has read the relevant portions of the stimulus bill. She's written about it in a commentary at Bloomberg.com, which we will link to at RushLimbaugh.com later this afternoon.

From the February 27 edition (subscription required) of "Rush's Morning Update":

LIMBAUGH: American companies that Democrats simply define as polluters will be forced into a cap-and-trade program, adding almost $1 trillion in taxes to their bottom lines. Small-business owners and people Democrats call "wealthy" will be slammed with new taxes as well. The Obama budget also funds the relentless drive toward socialized medicine. And all that is just the beginning. The way to look at this budget is not with an economic lens, it is with a philosophical one. Liberals want to make America -- remake it in their image. And this is how you will pay for it.

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