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
Cry Wolf Quotes
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism has been by way of medicine….If you don't do this, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in American when men were free.
Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of American life? Lenin thought so. He declared: 'Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the Socialist state.'
…we oppose Federal financing for such programs [that provide health care for the unemployed], since Federal deficits are already at record high levels. We also oppose new entitlement programs that have the potential to become open-ended. Some proposals amount to welfare programs without appropriate means tests.
We believe that the experience of the last few years teaches that in addressing problems of health care financing we should try at all costs to avoid the establishment of new Federal or State bureaucracies and regulatory regimes. We, further, should avoid the creation of new Government entitlement programs, the addition of new financial burdens on the Federal Health care budget, or the distortion of the marketplace by eliminating choice or reducing competition in health care.
Related Laws and Rules
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.
