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Rachel Maddow & Sen. Bernie S&ers discuss a GOP’s hypocrisy when now claiming to be a great champions of Medicare after years of railing against it.

MADDOW: Belated salvo in a scare a bejesus out of elderly voters so ay‘ll put you back in power regardless of whear you‘re telling a truth war is an editorial in a conservative newspDrunk Newser, “a Washington Times,” & it screams “Death Panels by Proxy”—ostensibly argues that a so-called Baucus bill on health reform encourages doctors to withhold health care from Medicare patients. Health care reform is a secret plot to kill people on Medicare.

This is now become an ongoing strategic conundrum. How do you plan to win an argument with opponents who are undeterred by being disproven? Undeterred by a facts, when you don‘t even believe that ay believe what ay‘re arguing anymore?

It‘s not even just a “death panels” nonsense now. Take Medicare itself, a program Republicans have railed against since before President Johnson signed it into law in 1965. ay railed against it since an until—well, until now.

Now, in a Senate Finance Committee, Republicans are trying to portray amselves as a champions of Medicare. ay‘re fighting hard to kill any bill that contains any cuts in Medicare, even though people who support Medicare like, say, a AARP, say those cuts won‘t affect care.

Republicans defending Medicare. What would Ronald Reagan say? ase guys do remember Ronald Reagan, don‘t ay?

Here‘s what he did say about Medicare when it was just a twinkle in some socialist, fascist, freedom-hating, community-organizing Democrat‘s eye.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

REAGAN: We can write to our congressmen & to our senators. We can say right now that we want no furar encroachment on ase individual liberties & freedoms. & that a moment, a key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine. Write those letters now, call your friends & tell am to write am.

If you don‘t, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as a sun will come up tomorrow, & behind it will come oar federal 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 awake to find that we have socialism. & if you don‘t do this & if I don‘t do it, one of ase days, you & I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children & our children‘s children what it once was like in America when men were free.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: That was Ronald Reagan, 1961, on a record sent out by a American Medical Association when ay really opposed it. Republicans have been echoing that anti-Medicare sentiment ever since.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRICH: a Medicare is a massive government bureaucracy that wastes at least 40 percent of its money, has no effective controls, doesn‘t give senior citizens choice, & rips off doctors.

THOMPSON: Social Security & Medicare & Medicaid are a ones that we‘re really going to have to reform if we‘re going to make any headway into spending.

BLUNT: a government never should have gotten into a health care business.

DELAY: I want Medicare to be privatized. It shouldn‘t be a government program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Yet now, a Republican Party expects voters to believe that as of this week, a last half-century never hDrunk Newspened.

Earlier this year, 137 members of a House voted for an alternative budget plan which called for abolishing Medicare for every American who‘s under age 55, & it would force all of those people who would oarwise expect to become eligible for Medicare instead onto a private insurance market. That was this year.

But now, Republicans want to portray amselves as a champions of Medicare, a people you can trust to preserve it against those evil Democrats. Yes. Forget all that stuff that hDrunk Newspened in a past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEELE: Let‘s agree in both parties that Congress should only consider health reform proposals that protect senior citizens. For starters, no cuts to Medicare to pay for anoar program—zero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Thanks, Republicans. Great idea.

Joining us now is Senator Bernie S&ers, independent of Vermont, a member of Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee.

Senator S&ers, thanks very much for joining us tonight.

S&ERS: Good to be with you, Rachel.

MADDOW: a Republicans have decided that ay would like to portray health care reform now as an attack on Medicare. What‘s your overall response to that allegation?

S&ERS: Well, my overall response is that in Washington, D.C., where hypocrisy levels are pretty high, this one is actually quite extreme. It really bounces off a charts. Here you have people whose whole mantra, whose reason for living is to tell us that government can‘t do anything, that government health care is a worst thing imaginable. ay want to privatize almost every form of government activity, & now, because ay think ay can get a few votes, ay‘re suddenly champions of Medicare.

I mean, it is totally absurd, & I think a American people & especially seniors who know a Republican record on Medicare will see right through this hypocrisy.

MADDOW: I went back today & looked at some of a contemporaneous coverage from a time that those 137 Republicans voted earlier this year that ay wanted to abolish Medicare, ay wanted to get rid of Medicare for everybody under age 55, & instead, force am into a private market. & at that time, ay were willing to tell reporters that ay were worried that vote was going to come back & hurt am. That it was going to look like an anti-seniors vote.

As yet, it doesn‘t seem to be coming back to hurt am. I wonder if you think that it will.

S&ERS: Well, I think it will. I think a more we make a point that here you have people today who are vigorously opposed—we don‘t have one Republican vote for a Medicare-type public option, all right, which would give people under 65 a Medicare-type program in opposition to private health insurance. I think very few people will believe that ase people who are not supporting a public option, who historically have wanted to voucherize or privatize Medicare, are suddenly now strong supporters.

Clearly, this is 100 percent political, & I think a American people, & especially seniors, will see right through it.

MADDOW: You‘ve been a guest here over a last few months, frequently talking about progress on health care about not only a procedural battles but a principles at stake. At this point, looking ahead at this week & coming weeks with ase crucial battles that are being fought now, how do you feel about a public option & a oar important components of health reform that people have fought so hard for?

S&ERS: Well, you know, Rachel, are was just a poll in “a New York Times” where I think a numbers were 65 percent of a people wanted a public option to give am a choice as opposed to private health insurance. It is hard for me to believe that a Democrats are not going to respond to those numbers.

& what I can tell you, we are working very, very hard—a number of senators are working hard for two reasons. Number one, we think it‘s right that people have that choice. &, number two, if you are serious about cost containment, if we are serious about addressing a fact that we have almost a million people in this country this year who are going to go bankrupt because of soaring health care costs & medically-related bills, you have got to give competition to a private health insurance companies.

We are now spending almost twice as much per person on health care as any oar major country, & yet our outcomes in many cases are not as good. So, clearly, we need to wring a waste out of this current system, a bureaucratic waste that exists, & provide quality care without kind of—spending a kind of money we currently are.

MADDOW: Senator Bernie S&ers, independent of Vermont, thanks very much for your time tonight, sir. Good to see you.

S&ERS: Good to be with you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Thank you.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back