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- [00:04]
Derek Barris
Here's Ronald Reagan in 1961.
- [00:07]
Ronald Reagan
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it. Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it.
- [00:36]
Derek Barris
Oh, Ronnie, what an audition. And 19 years later, it would land you in the White House. It sounds like so many of the arguments for not implementing universal health care today, and in fact, Reagan and Reaganomics is very much the modern incarnation of that argument as to why we should not have. In a little while, we'll hear RFK Jr. Basically make the same argument in his own way going back to that time. Though, to be fair, Reagan was actually not against all facets of universal health care. For example, he supported the Kerr mills Act of 1960, which provided federal funds to states to take care of elderly people who couldn't afford health care. His stated opposition was to compulsory government health care programs, which to me is a bit of a misnomer, but I'll get back to that. I want to play one more clip from that era, however, because it really captures the sort of frantic ideology that exists in the Milton Friedman free market principles that have dominated America for generations now. And Ronnie just really nails it in this moment.
- [01:56]
Ronald Reagan
James Madison in 1780, speaking to the Virginia convention, said, since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
- [02:12]
Derek Barris
Was he talking about Trump and Musk there? No, no. He was warning about the dangers of socialism through the lens of providing Americans health care. Want to be really clear on that? The man loved the bootstraps mentality, this idea that you can pull yourself up and take responsibility for your own life. This has long been a prevailing philosophy in masculinity culture, for example, but there's a few problems. First off, this should be obvious, but you can't actually pull yourself up by your bootstraps. So there's actually a bit of unintended honesty in this analogy. It's supposed to be about individual responsibility, yet it actually proves that you need help in order to accomplish the action. Now, second and more to the point, Reagan just wanted to privatize everything. The reason conservatives today worship the man is because of Reaganomics, who I flagged a few moments ago. His governing economic policy philosophy, which has just repackaged Milton Friedman Free market economics Friedman's 1967 book Capitalism and Freedom laid the groundwork for Reagan's governing principles and it was basically this Friedman was advocating for lower marginal tax rates, less regulation, restrained government spending, and non inflationary monetary policy. This resulted in the whole concept of trickle down economics which some conservatives today still swear by. But we are over 40 years into that experiment and we can see how well that's worked out for us. Reagan also supported health Savings Accounts which are pre tax dollars that you can put away to use for health care or health related services. Now it sounds nice. It's sort of like 401ks and how you can play with the stock market for your retirement savings. That sounds sane, but it is just a way to ensure that you don't have to provide universal healthcare for all citizens. Going along the mindset of using 401ks, it's a way to not provide pensions to your employees. I'm Derek Barris and you're listening to a conspirituality bonus episode called the War on Fat People and I wanted to open with a little bit of Reagan because so much of what we're experiencing now in terms of MAGA and the free market principles and how that intersects with MAHA and healthcare began with the mind of this actor turned president. You've been listening to a Conspirituality Bonus episode sample. To continue listening, please head over to patreon.com conspirituality where you can access all of our main feed episodes ad free, as well as four years of bonus content that we've been producing. You can also subscribe to our bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support.