Delaware Top Blogs

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Breaking news from 1935

I found the following valentine to Obamacare above the fold in the Delaware newspaper:

Health woes just part of history
Popular federal programs were target for early criticism, too
Although multiple problems have snarled the rollout of President Barack Obama's signature health care law, it's hardly the first time a new, sprawling government program has been beset by early technical glitches, political hostility and gloom-and-doom denouncements. President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced heavy skepticism with his launch of Social Security in 1935-37. Turbulence also rocked subsequent key presidential initiatives, including Lyndon Johnson's rollout of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, Richard Nixon's Supplemental Security Income program in 1974 and George W. Bush's Medicare prescription drugs program in 2006. Yet these programs today are enormously popular with recipients. ... After FDR kicked off Social Security in 1937, Washington's pre-computer age bureaucrats faced enormous hurdles enrolling people for the old-age benefits. Many had the same or similar names. Not all employers kept detailed records on employees and how much they were paid, further complicating the process.
The online version of the News Journal has scrubbed the story, undoubtedly feeling embarrassed, and they ought to be. If readers don't know what happened in 1935, this is not the place to learn it today. I found it on Newsbusters. It was written by some clapped-out AP hack called Tom Raum. And appeared above the fold! Words fail me.Even this failing, unreadable rag has exceeded my expectations.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not sure what you mean by "if readers don't know what happened in 1935...", but this is a great article - it's just begs for a different conclusion after all this building up of "health woes".

miriam sawyer said...

i mean you are supposed to learn the history of Social Security, et al, from history books as part of your education. The newspaper is to disseminate current events.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but they are free to look for historic parallels, aren't they? It's just that they inadvertently
"cut the tree branch they were seating on", with their apt comparisons.
The conclusion is very graphic: as soon as and since social democrats came to power their Social Programs were utter and complete failure, sucking the life of productive members of society to benefit the leeches, more so with every passing year - and now we are accelerating to situation when productives become minority, and various "minorities" starting fight each other for speedily-disappearing pie slices.