Whenever Donald Trump gets asked about his previous, liberal-leaning views on an issue, he makes a point of comparing himself to Ronald Reagan. "Ronald Reagan was a Democrat, and he was sort of liberal," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity in August. "He was a Democrat with a liberal bent and he became a great conservative."
It's true that Reagan was once a Democrat. But Reagan made his shift to the right in his 40s, long before he ever sought elective office. And Reagan had a solid record of governing as a conservative by the time he ran for president.
By Trump's own admission, he's held liberal views up until just very recently.
As case in point is what Trump said in the first GOP debate about health care.
Fox News' Brett Baier asked Trump: "Now, 15 years ago, you called yourself a liberal on health care. You were for a single-payer system, a Canadian-style system."
Trump's answer: "As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland. It could have worked in a different age, which is the age you're talking about here."
So here is the newly minted conservative Trump extolling the virtues of socialized medicine in other countries, and maintaining that it could have worked here just 15 years ago.
Reagan's views on health care could not have been more different.Read the rest of John Merline's op-ed HERE.
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1 comment:
Here they go again, with another foolish Reagan comparison. The fact is, the US health care system has been a convoluted mess Its entire history. Half of it has been government run, even before Obama became president.
Reagan pushed through the hospital mandate, requiring the hospitals to accept emergency cases. This action by Reagan made the individual mandate inevitable, which is why Heritage Foundation started pushing it in 1989.
There are so many myths about the health insurance system. It's very messy and illogical, for example having coverage in your home state and then being "out of network" one state over, and ending up with a multi-thousand bill. I am quite sure that any solution Trump proposes will be preferable to the system Reagan or Obama presided over.
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