Health Care

Health Care

The history of American health care is exceptional, and not in a positive way. Every other developed nation has a cradle to the grave universal health care system. Several presidents attempted to provide universal healthcare, but every attempt was defeated by industry and conservative opposition. Several significant gains were made over the years: Medicare provided access to coverage for the elderly, Medicaid for the very poor, SCHIP for children, and COBRA for the previously insured unemployed. But it wasn’t until 2010 that a universal health care bill, the Affordable Care Act, was finally signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Commentary

Health Care and Emergency Room

Crying Wolf -- The Same Old Song on Health Care and Unions

April 29, 2009

Cry Wolf Quotes

A Government agency proposes to: Collect the tax. Control the money. Set the rules. Determine the services. Direct doctor and patient participation. Dominate every citizen’s medical affairs.

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AMA pamphlet (Your Medical Program…Compulsory-or Voluntary?) from the AMA’s public relations campaign against health care reform. 1949.

[Write to your congressional representative against the health care reform proposal or] we will awake to find that we have socialism.

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From an AMA recording by Ronald Reagan, "Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine."
01/01/1961 | Full Details | Law(s): Medicare

I don't have time to beat around the bush. The health-care plan as proposed by Mrs. Clinton is socialism. There's no soft way to peddle it. There is not other way to describe it.

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Rush Limbaugh.

[The Republican plan will] make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.

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Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
07/28/2009 | Full Details | Law(s): Affordable Care Act

Backgrounders & Briefs

Marine Hospitals in the 18th Century

The Marine Hospital Act of 1798 was the federal government’s first foray into public medicine.  The arguments against the policy sound awfully familiar.

The Work, Family and Equity Index: How Does the United States Measure Up?

The Project on Global Working Families is a study that measures worldwide social safety nets.

Resources

Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) is a progressive think tank that concentrates on social and economic policy, both domestic and international.

University of California-Berkeley Labor Center carries out research on labor and workplace-related issues.

Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity is a think tank devoted to food policy in the United States.

Institute for Women’s Policy Research is a prominent think tank that is largely focused on American women's issues. This covers everything from pay equity to welfare reform to domestic violence.