John Meyers Quotes
Not a day goes by when a hospital emergency room somewhere in America doesn't have a case where some elderly person has been abandoned, usually by the children.
John Meyers, American Association of Retired Persons, 1992
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Commenting on the state of many nursing homes
Forseth forgets that in Canada and the United States, as well as most other countries with equivalent systems, the individual worker pays into the Social Security Trust Fund and have paid for their insurance during their working career. Social Security has been solvent so no general welfare money has come into the system. Other conservatives complain that the yield that Social Security pays is not as large as it could be with a private investment and insurance option, so most conservatives do not even think of Social Security as a type of welfare.
She was over 80 when she said this.
This captures the essence of the Social Security System and similar old age support programs. In earlier and less developed societies, the cultural tradition was that the children had a responsibility to car for the elderly members of their families; in sophisticated societies, there is recognition that some younger people will not or cannot fill this responsibility and the system is institutionalized as Social Security of some variant thereof.
There had been a heat wave in Europe that summer during the traditional August French vacation month with the result that there were few physicians, nurses, police, and other professionals in Paris to handle the emergency. Over 10,000 people died of the heat, most of them elderly.
There was no welfare and no Social Security then. Sinclair’s idea and another by a Physician by the name of Townsend (see {36007} ) were the only two ideas in the table about old age pensions. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, noting the appeal of Sinclair and the Townsend plan pushed Social Security shortly thereafter and it became law in 1936. This quotation illustrates that losing candidates and their programs can have a very profound effect on public policy.
A professional mature female actress spoke the words. The Majority of the Republicans voted against the Medicare law that had passed under Lyndon Johnson. They lost millions of votes over that for years. Then at the end of the 20th century, many Republicans tried to reduce or privatize Medicare which by then was second only to Social Security among all government programs. The Democrats then used many variants of this Schwartz ad to great effect.
The cost of health care had become so great that many people—especially those on fixed incomes were not able to afford the costs. The majority of all bankruptcies in America are caused by a family medical problem.
In effect this was one of the first organized systems of Social Security and disability insurance—one of the first social safety nets.
Both of these programs have been amongst the most popular programs in American History. Yet for Republican conservatives at the beginning of the 21st century, these were programs that they wanted to either terminate of alter in such severe manners that they would not be anything like the original programs. When these programs were passed by Congress, most Republicans were opposed to the legislation but enough were supportive to have bipartisan support. However, by 2000, most liberal Republicans had been driven out of the party, and it was the Democrats who kept the programs alive and in force despite the Republican assaults. The Democrats had public opinion on their side on these battles and even most registered Republicans opposed President George W. Bush’s major attempt to privatize Social Security.
