Obamacare fight vs. birth of Social Security: Which was uglier?

[Go Vols]

The uproar over Obamacare echoes the fears some conservatives raised about two now-popular programs: Social Security and Medicare. Ronald Reagan even recorded an LP denouncing Medicare.

They said one program would end freedom in America, and worried that another was akin to socialism.

No, we’re not talking about aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

If you think politicians up in arms about the upcoming launch of Obamacare, you must not be old enough to remember the name-calling and dire predictions that predicated the introduction of two other major legislative milestones: Medicare and Social Security.

“There is a history around these government programs of controversy, of fear, of partisan division and ideological debates,” said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy and management at the University of North Carolina.

Of course, both Social Security and Medicare were enacted despite such opposition – and in both cases, experts say they quickly became quite popular and have stayed that way.

“We’ve been through this before, and in some ways that's comforting because Medicare and Social Security turned out OK,” Oberlander said.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/obamacare-fight-vs-birth-social-security-which-was-uglier-4B11241122

[SheilaT]

1. This is uglier because there weren't as many outright lies told,

and no one threatened to shut down the government.

I recall the fight over Medicare quite well. Doctors were horrified, and now many doctors want to go to a single payer system, and I've been seeing that for at least a couple of decades now.

[MFrohike]

2. I'd say Obamacare

Social Security was passed in 1935. In 1936, the GOP candidate took two states. One of those two states was not Texas, which FDR carried with 87%, not a typo, of the vote. Neither was South Carolina, which FDR carried with 98% of the vote.