9/9/09

RONALD REAGAN’S POLICIES PUT THE MENTALLY ILL IN JAILS AND ON THE STREETS, SO SARAH PALIN USED HER “COMMON SENSE” AND MADE HIM HER HEALTH CARE HERO



She Who Quits's ghost writer wrote this In an op-ed for the WSJ:

Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that "no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds.
You would quote Ronald Reagan on health care? You mean Ronald Reagan's death policy for the mentally ill? He emptied the mental hospitals and closed some of them down. The mentally ill now fill the prisons and live on the streets. The prisons in this country have poor to no health care. For example the Alaskan prisons which lie to the public about providing adequate health care and are quite brutal to the mentally ill. Living on the streets is dangerous to begin with, poor nutrition, inability to get enough sleep, exposure to those who would prey upon the vulnerable, and difficulty getting health care needs met are all factors which contribute to low quality of life and death. I believe taking mentally ill people and putting them in situations where they are traumatized repeatedly has caused many to commit crimes they would have never done if in a better environment. How can you quote a man on health care who would treat the most vulnerable among us like throwaways?

There was a reason those people were in mental health facilities, they could not function in society and they needed a safe place to live. I worked in a state hospital in Washington in the 1980s when Reagan‘s policies were being implemented. Later president Reagan would cut aid for federally-funded community mental health programs. Then Ted Kennedy and others wrote the community mental health systems act in an attempt to protect the mentally ill and Reagan blocked it. Oh, by the way Sarah a lot of them were developmentally disabled like your "son" Trig. Ronald Reagan is the main reason we have so much widespread homelessness and increased crime. These same kinds of policies have been played out in Alaska to the point of 12 dead homeless people in Anchorage Alaska this summer.

Alexander R. Thomas, Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology Northeastern University had this to say about Reagan's policies designed to remove assistance from the mentally ill, "The shifts in such policies were not the result of overt attempts at change, but rather part of an overall effort to realign the political economy to be more profitable for business." tp://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html.

Ronald Reagan also said, “Don't be afraid to see what you see.” I see the insurance industry handing you your op-ed already written. Why? Well, I just used used that common sense your ghostwriter was talking about.

6 comments:

nswfm CA said...

Frozen, thank you for pointing that out. We are still living with that shitty legacy of his.
(I saw on another blog, from a readability standpoint, others have asked for you to change the background and the type colors to make it easier to read. Something to consider, imho.)

KaJo said...

I remember those days, too, also having worked in the health care industry.

I wonder if Reagan got the idea from Fidel Castro, i.e., the Mariel boatlift (1980)? I'm just surprised Reagan didn't find a way to ship the mentally ill across the Rio Grande...

Celia Harrison said...

Kajo wrote I wonder if Reagan got the idea from Fidel Castro, i.e., the Mariel boatlift (1980)?

We actually got one of those people Castro sent. He had scars all over his body from being tortured, which is probably why he was mentally ill. He didn't like to talk about it, but when he did it was horrifying.

Celia Harrison said...

nswfm CA said...from a readability standpoint, others have asked for you to change the background and the type colors to make it easier to read.

I hadn't gotten any complaints yet, but was expecting that I might. Sorry it was hard for some to read. I will experiment with different colors. I love Pink and for years would not wear any other color. I had a pink bedroom and pink living room furniture. A coworker told me she couldn't stay in my house because she thought she was going to throw up once. Please let me know if the changes work. Thanks for the feed back.

Word Juggler said...

'At the same time, can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we're for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we're against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road.'


That's the whole paragraph from the 1964 speech that this segment was taken from.

Celia Harrison said...

Chris said... when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road.

Thank you for that information Chris. France has one of the best health care systems in the world. It costs them a lot of money, but so does ours.