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

The last thing we need is Hillarycare. The last thing we need is socialized medicine.

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Mitt Romney, ABCNews.com.
09/16/2007 | Full Details | Law(s): Universal Healthcare

We have arrived at socialized medicine in America. I do not report this as either a good or bad event but simply as something that has happened with hardly anyone realizing it. This is the first result -- and probably the most important -- of the national health care debate launched last week by President Clinton. Our politics and economy will never again be the same.

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Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post.

I considered it socialism. It is to my mind the most socialistic measure this Congress has ever had before it.

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Senator Robert Taft (R-OH).

One such troubling provision is a tax increase to pay for the $635 billion included in the budget for health care 'reserve funds.' Health care reform is desperately needed in America, but I'm concerned that $635 billion will be a down payment on socialized medicine, causing the impersonal rationing of health care and destroying the doctor-patient relationship.

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Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA)
02/26/2010 | 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.