Fourteeen presidents have occuped the White House thus far duing my lifetime. That's one third of all the Presidents we have ever had. Beginning with the first of my Presidents, Calvin Coolidge, and continuing right up to George W. Bush, there has been an unending concern in the nation about high medical costs, people without health insurance, and a changing variety of other health care problems. The first of many committees and national commissions organized to find and recommend solutions was convened in 1927. Its final report,in 1932, seemed revolutionary at the time, calling for massive changes in health care planning and medical education, extended public health services and group health insurance, possibly paid for by taxes. The Commission was headed by Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, President of Stanford University, who became Herbert Hoover's Secretary of the Interior.
I have been involved in national health care policy since the Eisenhower Administration, first as an insurance industry propagandist, then as a member of President Kennedy's Medicare task force, then with the Public Health Service Division of Medical Care Administration responsible for the professional health aspects of Medicare, then for 12 years as Executive Director of the Committee for Natonal Health Insurance. Oddly enough, during all that time, we came closest to national health insurance during the brief administration of Gerald Ford. How we squandered that opportunity and the lessons we learned might prove useful in promoting a universal health plan during the administation of George W. Bush.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to descibe the opportunities, obstacles, and strategic lessons of the past 75 years of the nation's efforts to achieve universal health care.
Keywords: Universal Health Care, Health Care Politics
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.