(HR - 2893 - everybody agreed on it . . . well, mostly)

With World War 2 over, the focus was now on domestic issues. The Truman Administration sought to expand on Social Security, update it from its beginnings in 1935. America had changed in ten years and Social Security needed to keep up with the change. Everyone agreed it was a good idea. But what Truman tried to do was finish what FDR had pledged to do - make a National Healthcare plan part of the Social Security system. And that's where things began to slide off the rails.

Paul Sifton (UAW): “The principle provisions of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Bill is now being marked up by the House Ways and Means Committee, a call for the doubling of the benefits paid to aged persons or their survivors it also calls for bringing in some twenty million persons not now covered including the farmers and the hired farm hands, and by the way the news of the Grange’s attitude is great news, I may say, to the CIO and I’m sure to the AF of L that that oldest farm organization is now raising itself in support of this idea of systematic compulsory coverage in this program. In addition to that, it calls also for establishing temporary and permanent disability benefits as systematic coverage. If there is a justification and there certainly is for unemployment compensation and there is even more justification for disability benefits because it costs more to be idle and sick than it does just to be idle. And that is certainly long overdue.”

It's interesting that during the early incarnation of Social Security, farmers and farm hands weren't considered eligible (one wonders why) for Old Age and Survivors Insurance. Benjamin Kendrick from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was adamant that expanding Social Security was a good idea but any notion of having a National Health Plan meant disaster for the country.

In this segment of the radio series America United, Paul Sifton of the UAW, Representative Andrew Biemiller (D-Wisconsin), Lloyd Halvorsen of The Grange and Kendrik discuss the various aspect of the proposed expansion in 1946.

And sixty four years later . . . .

( . . .speaking of buying elections)

Quick - who remembers California's Prop 186 in 1994? No? Anybody? Since history has been relegated in some sectors to selective memory, it's good to be reminded that 1994 was not only not a good year for Democrats, it wasn't a very good year for people living in California (again!).

On the 1994 ballot was a measure that proposed a Universal Healthcare plan for the people of California patterned much in the same fashion as the Canadian Healthcare system. It was co-authored by Dr. Kevin Grumbach, who saw the then-current state of affairs with private insurance as a disaster, and since any thought of a National Healthcare plan was pretty much dead in the water, California would at least do it on a statewide level. NPR aired a report and an interview with Grumbach on September 20, 1994.

Dr. Kevin Grumbach: “I was seeing kids coming in with Meningitis because they didn’t get vaccinated in a timely fashion. I was seeing patients showing up in the emergency room with Cancer who had just lost their health insurance and lost their personal physician at a time they’re needed the most and at the time it just seemed such an irrational system that wasn’t working the way it should.

* * *

Grumbach: “Medicare has never refused a patient coverage because they have a catastrophic illness. Private insurance does that all the time. Medicare never tells somebody ‘oh, you have AIDS we’re now going to limit your coverage to $5,000’ which happened again recently in Texas to a person who is employed and had insurance and got AIDS and they changed the policy so they’d only cover $5,000 of expenses. Public programs never say ‘you’ve gotta prove that you can afford to pay your premium before we will cover you.”

But then the Insurance companies quickly mobilized and pumped millions of dollars into attack ads, smear campaigns and mouthpiece doctors to spread a tidalwave of fear throughout the state (we're talking 1994 here, not 2010 . . .supposedly).

The end result was, of course a stunning defeat for the proposition (72% to 27%) and a return to business as usual.

Anyone who thinks Big Insurance isn't up to their eyeballs in the current, or any proposal on Healthcare reform is badly deluded. Anyone who thinks their "wonderful insurance policy" will happily take care of them when their own catastrophic illness arrives is not living in anything remotely resembling the real world.

And for your ignorance we're all at risk.

(Then - as now, only there's an Albatross in the living room)

(Note: This is a repost from July 7th and September of last year in answer to several inquiries as to just how long this thing has been going on.)

Continuing the history of Public Healthcare, I ran across this panel discussion and Q&A from December 4,1941, featuring Dr. SS. Goldwater, City Hospital commissioner for New York, Margaret Bourke-White, the photographer/social chronicler. Howard Cumley from the Association of Manufacturers, and Eleanor Roosevelt, first Lady.

The panel, from the radio program "America's Town Hall of The Air" centered mostly on the state of health of most Americans. Seems we were a rather flabby bunch in 1941, judging from the large number of rejects from the Draft Board (remember, this is 3 days before Pearl Harbor and the start of our involvement in World War 2). But the subject was also health care for everyone, regardless of ability to pay.

The first half of the program (a little over 30 minutes) is given over to statements by the panel, but the second half is a question and answer period from members of the audience.

Goldwater skirts the issue, not saying if he is for a Universal Healthcare plan or not. Bourke-White is a little more forthcoming (at around 40 minutes):

Question: Do you feel Socialized Medicine would benefit the American public?

Bourke-White: Yes, I feel it would. I know there are many objections, sometimes from private physicians who don't wish to lose their practice. Sometimes from private hospitals who don't wish to lose their clients. But I see no reason why some form, at least from Medical Insurance or Hospitalization Insurance can't be put into effect. And people who can afford to go to their own physician, people who can afford to go to their own hospitals, still can continue to do so. The people who can't possibly afford treatment or perhaps could afford it at one time, can still be taken care of.

Roosevelt is staunchly for some form of Universal Healthcare, but in lieu of the fact that war was literally days away, it was an idea that had to be shelved until it was over.

By then of course, the albatross had grown.