THE WAR AGAINST UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IS 70 YEARS OLD
In 1948 President Truman, with a Democratic majority of both houses of Congress, set out to pass a health care program for all Americans. It did not pass. Why?
The AMA hired notorious political consultants Whitaker and Baxter.
With $3.5 million of the AMA’s money they launched a “National Education (or rather a miseducation) Campaign” to defeat Truman’s plan for a national Compulsory Health Insurance and buy Blue Cross/Blue Shield private insurance.
They generated a public crusade to fight for freedom of choice. Truman’s plan, they pointed out, would allow the US to drift towards socialism and Communism and lead to disaster.
According to historian Jill Lapore, an internally circulated CONFIDENTIAL- NOT FOR CIRCULATION plan was the real plan. “While the immediate objective was to defeat Truman’s proposal, it’s long term objective was ‘to put a permanent stop to the agitation for socialized medicine in this country by:
- Awakening the people to the danger of a politically controlled, government- CONTINUE READING: THE WAR AGAINST UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IS 70 YEARS OLD | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing