Universal Health Care: A 100 Year Plan
Published on 2008-02-26 00:00:00
Despite what Hillary or Obama would have you believe, their plans for universal health care are not new. In fact, plans to reform American health care go back 100 years, to the start of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. Basing their ideas on the European model of social medicine, the American Association of Labor Legislation began pushing for health care reforms in 1906, and held its first national conference in 1913. Working alongside other medical behemoths like the American Medical Association, they crafted a health care bill that would provide universal compulsory health care to all American workers who made less than $1200 a year, including dependents. By 1917 the AMA's House of delegates agreed with the AALL's proposals, and it looked like Congressional legislation would follow. However, the American Federation of Labor disagreed with the AALL's proposals, sensing that government funded health care would weaken unions' hold on social benefits to American workers. Eventually support from within the AMA dried up as well, based on disagreements on physician payments, and the AALL's efforts were dropped. The next big attempts were made in the Depression Era and an influx of social reformers brimming with charity funds. The Committee on the Cost of Medical Care, created with Rockefeller Foundation grants, first met in 1926 and was made up of 50 economists, physicians, public health specialists, and major interest groups. The CCMC never established an agreement on whether or not health care reforms should be voluntary or compulsory, but did push for the government to dump more national resources into medical care. The group filed a number of reports and continued working with industry physicians and economists (despite resistance from the AMA) until it disbanded in 1932. Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, himself a Rockefeller trustee, headed the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care in 1932 to oversee the strengths and weaknesses of the American health care system, and studied health care costs in order to find the best way to implement medical care reforms. In 1933 his committee published The Costs of Medical Care, a report which studied ways to set up a payment structure for America's new health care system.
Lewis Meriam, a member of the Rockefeller-funded Emergency Committee for Employment, published several reports on socialist reforms in public policy, including one titled 'Relief and Social Security' and another titled 'The Issue of Compulsory Health Insurance'. His report on compulsory health care was originally published by the Brookings Institute in 1948.
During FDR's presidency, he attempted twice to initiate universal health care, first with an amendment to the Social Security Act of 1935, which was ultimately left out; and secondly with the Wagner Bill (National Health Act). Funding was to be provided in the form of Federal grants, and given to the states for administration. The chances for medical care reforms ended in the late 1930s with the 1938 election and a swelling of Republican seats in the House and Senate. However, in May of 1945 the Wagner Bill resurfaced as the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill. The Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill would ultimately be written, re-written, pulled, and reinserted several times until it was shot down by another Republican-dominated Congress in 1947. But the Wagner Bill was not going to fade away by going quietly into the night. The bill resurfaced yet again as the Forand Bill in 1957 with support from Americans for Democratic Action, a socialist activist group which pushed for socialist reforms in the U.S. By this time Eisenhower was president, and president Truman's previous support for the health care amendments were not there, and the bill died in committee.
Rebirthed amendments from the various committees and Congressional bills finally found their way into the King-Anderson Bill, which provided for a Medicare system, and was passed by both the House and Senate in 1965, creating for America the first truly universal health care plan option. Despite $36 billion in spending cuts to Medicare by President Bush and the previous Republican Congress, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that Medicare will cost $2.56 trillion over the next 5 years.
There's been a driven agenda by the Fabian socialists to create national health care systems throughout the world, including the United States. If you follow the history of Social Security, Medicare, and other socialized medicine packages, you'll find that the U.S. has only escaped compulsory health care due to spending and budget differences, rather than philosophical ones. The march towards complete integration of the United States into global socialism has been an age old battle going back to the early 1900s, and doesn't look to stop any time soon. The modern socialist agenda masks itself in the humanist platform, of helping those that cannot help themselves. When the curtain is pulled back to show who's been behind social health care reforms, the secret reveals a power elite of bankers, socialists, and industrialists who only crave power and total control. History shows this to be true, and if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it. At current spending levels, the United States simply cannot afford a universal health care plan, and even if it could be afforded, who pays? Every plan that has been proposed suggests paying for these health care reforms with Federal grants, but how are grants subsidized? With taxes. Who pays taxes? The people. They play, we pay.