 Looking Back to Look Forward: Health Care Reform:
Gary Davis, KPLU News
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
In part two of our Election series “Looking Back To Look Forward,” we hear about the history of health care reform.
If you ask voters many will say the big push for a national health plan began with Bill & Hillary Clinton in the early 90’s. But it’s decades older than that. Here’s Franklin Roosevelt…67 years ago.
Franklin Roosevelt (1941): We should widen the opportunity for adequate medical care.
You can forgive voters for thinking it started with the Clintons. They took a high stakes stand in 1993.
Bill Clinton (1993): This health care system of ours is badly broken, and it’s time to fix it.
Bill Clinton was the last President to propose a national health plan. His Health Security Act – led by then First Lady Hillary Clinton - promised universal coverage – insurance for everyone …
Bill Clinton (1993): Health care that can never be taken away, health care that is always there.
Then came a well-timed TV ad attack from the insurance industry, featuring the fictional couple “Harry and Louise.”
TV Ad “Harry and Louise” : The government may force us to pick from a few health care plans designed by government bureaucrats…Having choices we don’t like is no choice at all.
The ad helped derail the Clinton’s high-profile effort, the last big defeat for universal health care. In the early 1930’s
President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to include national health insurance as part of his Social Security plan. The main resistance came from the American Medical Association, the organization of doctors who were the country’s most powerful medical lobby. So F-D-R dropped health insurance from the Social Security Act of 1935. But he was determined to steer the dialog back to universal health care.
Franklin Roosevelt (1944): We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights, under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all.
Roosevelt raised the ante by including health care among the items in his 1944 Economic Bill of Rights…
Roosevelt (1944): The right to adequate medical care, and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
A year later, in his fourth term, Roosevelt died in office. It was his vice president, Harry Truman, who took the next step. Truman was the first president to ask for a specific plan for universal coverage.
Harry Truman (1949) In a nation as rich as ours, it is shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care.
That was 1949. Again, the American Medical Association, with Republican support, beat the effort. But there was one more victory a Democratic president was to achieve, before the parties traded leadership roles on the issue. Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare Act fifteen years later, in 1965.
Lyndon Johnson (1965): No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so they might enjoy dignity in their later years.
Medicare changed everything. The act proved to many people that government could create positive changes for people in need. But Medicare’s lack of financial controls brought an unintended consequence: a rapid increase in health care costs…a situation that continues today. By the early 70’s, everyone was talking about reform to reign in costs…even the long-resistant A-M-A. It’s doctors supported a health plan funded by tax credits and private insurers. Organized labor had its own plan: it wanted government be the insurer. President Richard Nixon tried to weave a path of compromise…and in doing so he became the first Republican president to propose universal coverage. In his last State of the Union address, Nixon sensed a deal was close.
Richard Nixon (1974): Turning now to the rest of the agenda for 1974, the time is at hand this year to bring comprehensive, high quality health care within the reach of every American. I shall propose a sweeping new program ….
Nixon’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Act is the closest the nation’s come to universal health care. All the key players were talking. But in the end, it was organized labor that wouldn’t compromise. They thought if they held out just a bit longer their plan for government-run insurance would win. But the moment of opportunity was lost.
Nixon (1974): I shall resign the presidency at noon tomorrow.
Watergate’s fallout and a national energy crisis pushed health care off the national agenda. Now, more than three decades later, 47 million Americans are uninsured. And the United States is the only industrialized nation without universal health care. The political parties are far apart, once again. Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama offer voters strikingly different proposals.
McCain says he wants free-market solutions to control health care costs. He’d offer tax credits to people without insurance. They could be used by those who want a better plan than the one offered by their employer. McCain’s message: shop around for the deal you want.
John McCain: It would help change the whole dynamic of the current system, putting individuals and families back in charge, and forcing companies to respond with better service at lower cost.
In contrast, Barack Obama’s plan for universal coverage is a mix of private insurance and public financing. His plan requires employers to offer what he calls a ‘meaningful’ insurance option. If a business doesn’t want to pay for health benefits, employers would pay into a public plan modeled after the ample one federal employees receive.
Barack Obama: It will cover all essential medical services, including preventative, maternity, disease management, and mental health care. It will include high standards for quality and efficiency. If you can’t afford this insurance, you’ll receive a subsidy to pay for it.
Both Obama and McCain’s plans allow you to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it. But the candidate’s proposals underscore the philosophical split that divides the parties on health care. McCain says government-run health systems turn into inefficient bureaucracies. Obama says the lobbying power of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries are forcing us to maintain the status quo.
For perspective on health care reform we invited a cross-section of voters to our studios. Restaurant owner and Republican Kerry Lonergan of Lynnwood says she feels the squeeze rising health benefit prices have on her business. Lonergan likes McCain’s idea to lower insurance costs through increased competition.
Kerry Lonergan: His plan isn’t perfect. We’re not going to have a perfect plan. But we need to act, and we need to start allowing people more choice, not having to have every mandate in the book.
Carmen Suazo is a nurse educator who lives in Seattle. Suazo supported Hillary Clinton’s campaign…and now, she’s backing Obama. Still, she questions the deeper meaning of universal health care.
Carmen Suazo: Universal for whom? You know, I mean, what I need versus what you need or believe in could be very different.
Wight Reade: You could not be more right. I am convinced that we are not made by rubber stamps.
Dr. Wight Reade is a retired pediatrician and radiologist. Reade describes himself as a Libertarian. He voted against Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, and says he’s still wary of the idea of health care as a right.
Wight Reade: A lot about Mr. Roosevelt I admired, though I called him the Great White Father. Why? Because I thought he was busy taking care of everybody, and I think in this country we grew up taking care of ourselves. And Roosevelt’s talk about the right to medical care led to my question internally, “By what right and at whose expense?
One of the youngest voters in our group – Karl Topee, who works for a local pet-store chain, was impressed by Roosevelt’s legacy. An Obama supporter, Topee says if sweeping changes could be made now , their affect would be generational.
Karl Topee: I’d like to see somebody try to introduce plans of that nature today, and what affect that would have sixty years from now.
McCain supporter Kerry Lonergan says if voters want any results, they need to hold their elected officials accountable.
Kerry Lonergan: There’s too much politics, there’s not a focus on getting things done, and, you know, we’re paying the price for it.
The biggest social programs of the past century – Social Security and Medicare – came after landslide elections and single-party majorities in Congress. While pollsters predict gains for Democrats in the House and Senate, they’re not expected to claim a supermajority. The next President will need to build bi-partisan support to make any movement toward reform, and fix a health care system both Obama and McCain say is in crisis. Gary Davis, KPLU News, Seattle.
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