A Short History of the Health Care Debate

Franklin Roosevelt identified health care as a right, but never pushed for it. Harry Truman campaigned for a government program, but it was under Dwight Eisenhower that employers began to offer health insurance as a tax-free benefit.


John Kennedy introduced the initial Medicare legislation, which did not pass. Notice that he compares the American health care system unfavorably to those in Europe.






Harry Truman was the first president to actively champion universal health care. Although it was a central part of his epic 1948 campaign, Truman never proposed actual legislation. Members of his administration devised the original concept of Medicare, and in 1965, Truman became the first American to enroll in the program:


Richard Nixon's health care plan, though not passed, changed the terms of the debate from government-driven universal care to general access through the private insurance system, the approach eventually adopted by President Obama. Don't miss the closing remarks in this video.


Bill Clinton, as ever conversant in policy matters, summarizes the pros and cons of different approaches to universal health care. Clinton's own attempt at health care reform collapsed under attacks from the health insurance industry and a unified Republican opposition. Ironically, one Republican alternative featured the mandates that the party later decried as socialism when proposed by Barack Obama.


March 23, 2010: Barack Obama signs health care reform into law 62 years after Harry Truman made the first serious proposal to guarantee health care to all Americans:


Mercy and old City Park oaks near Marconi and Harrison...

Whitman, as Whitman would have wanted (thanks, Editilla)...

HBD to JMG...


Turbulent April...

Harry Truman campaigning for president in 1948:

The Movies And More

Journey Into Fear (1943). D: Norman Foster. Joseph Cotton, Delores Del Rio, Everett Sloane, Ruth Warrick, Orson Welles. Watch for this one on TCM. Cotton is at his dithering best in this tale of a WW II arms salesman pursued by Nazis for some obscure reason. Del Rio attempts a French accent, Welles plays a bemused Turkish secret police official, Warrick (Cotten's wife) acts unconcerned about it all, and Sloane -- as an eccentric businessman of indeterminate nationality -- heads a posse of character actors who join the fun with great relish. Although Welles didn't direct Journey, Wellesian touches abound and the suspense builds to an exciting finale. And only 69 minutes long!

Seven Pounds (2008). D: Gabriele Muccino. Will Smith, Rosario Dawson. Weak, slow, and dull, notable mainly for one of the most excruciatingly bad opening scenes in the history of cinema. Essentially, Seven Pounds is macabre take on the old story of a dying rich man spreading the wealth among deserving strangers. It's also yet another unconvincing case of an appealing but limited actor (Will Smith, in this case) giving a so-called "performance of a lifetime" by looking sensitive and misty-eyed for two hours. Rosario Dawson is good as a heart-transplant candidate.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). D: David Fincher. Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Jared Harris, Tilda Swinton, Julia Ormond. Based on a Fitzgerald short story about a man who becomes younger as he ages, Benjamin Button is well done and engaging. Pitt shows unexpectedly range, and ever-capable Blanchett is ravishing. But in the end, the movie is essentially themeless. Fitzgerald's trifle of a short story guesses at what life might be like if we really did know then what we know now (we're better off as things are, it turns out), but the movie ignores all that. Moreover, there's no context from which to play off the central conceit: Except for an interlude set during WW II, Benjamin misses out on Vietnam, the counterculture, the Civil Rights movement (he lives in a remarkably tolerant New Orleans), the Fifties, and the Depression. Nonetheless, the story of two intersecting lives that "meet in the middle" never fails to hold interest and is surprisingly convincing. A date movie if there ever was one.

Frost/Nixon (2008). D: Ron Howard. Frank Langella, Michael Sheen. Another 3-star Ron Howard movie, this based on the Peter Morgan play purporting to show the back story to David Frost's 1977 televised interviews of former President Richard Nixon. Frost hoped that the interviews would enhance his prestige; the disgraced Nixon wanted to vindicate himself. It's a good movie -- swiftly paced and effectively acted by both stars. The interview sequences come off especially well. But in an odd way, the film unintentionally vindicates Nixon: Frost comes across as an unprepared dilettante, a lightweight who takes a pounding from his intellectual superior until a lucky punch sends the heavyweight crashing to the deck. In the meantime, Langella's Nixon studiously prepares for the interviews, taking the whole enterprise seriously while regarding it -- as he tells Frost -- as a duel. Is the best way to prepare for a final exam to party all week, then cram at the last minute? Frost/Nixon suggests that this will work every time...

New Orleans music vs. Austin music: Which is better? Does it matter? Don't miss the comments, where Editilla sets things right. I give my humble opinion, too...

Melissa Etheridge weighs in on Rick Warren...

Hendrik Hertzberg thinks that the Warren business is another one of Obama's brilliant, baffling chess moves...

If it were up to me, I'd strike a blow for secular humanism and have no invocation at all...

Paul Krugman writes that the GOP has no one but itself to blame...

Quote of the Day: "But a defeat of Hamas in Gaza -- following on the heels of our success in Iraq -- would be a real setback for Iran." William Kristol actually wrote that here. That's like saying that if Cornwallis had had a few more successes like Yorktown, we'd all be pledging allegiance to the Union Jack...

On the other hand, David Frost successfully elicited riveting moments like the following. Watch the palpable increase of Nixon's discomfort and embarrassment when confronted with his own words:

More Frost-Nixon interview clips here.

A Real Dick

The National Archives released a set Nixon White House tapes today, recorded in 1971 and 1972. Lowlights include:

July 1, 1971: Nixon instructs Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to have someone break into the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.:

I can't have a high-minded lawyer ... I want a son-of-a-b----. I want someone just as tough as I am. ... We're up against an enemy, a conspiracy that will use any means. We are going to use any means... . Get it done. I want it done. I want the Brookings Institution cleaned out and have it cleaned out in a way that has somebody else take the blame.

April 4, 1972: Nixon discusses the press with Haldeman:

NIXON: Return the calls to those poor dumb bastards ... who I know are our friends. Now do it ... We made the same mistake [Dwight] Eisenhower made, but not as bad as Eisenhower made, because he sucked the Times too much ... G-d damn it, don't talk to them for a while. Will you enforce that now?

HALDEMAN: I'll try.

May 18, 1972: Nixon talks to Henry Kissinger about the National Security Adviser's meeting with Ivy League college presidents regarding the war in Vietnam:

The Ivy League presidents? Why, I'll never let those sons-of-b------ in the White House again. Never, never, never. They're finished. The Ivy League schools are finished ... Henry, I would never have had them in. Don't do that again ... They came out against us when it was tough ... Don't ever go to an Ivy League school again, ever. Never, never, never.

Nov. 14, 1972: Nixon talks with his aide Charles Colson about his landslide re-election victory over Democrat George McGovern:

NIXON: "What in the hell did you think of McGovern's statement on the election? Wasn't that the sour grapes crap again?”

COLSON: “Well, it's unbelievable, the arrogance of the guy ... God, what a bad man. Just awfully glad we got him buried and put away for good. I think he is.”

NIXON: Oh, he's buried. He's buried.

Dec. 9, 1972: Nixon talks to Colson about the appointment of building trades union leader Peter Brennan as secretary of labor:

NIXON: The idea, they finally think the appointment of a working man makes them think we're for the working man.

COLSON: That's precisely it.

NIXON: They talk about all the tokenism. We appoint blacks, and they don't think we're for blacks. Mexicans. They don't think we're for Mexicans. But a working man, by golly, that is really something.

Lyndon Johnson may have been coarse -- coarser, even -- but at least he had a sense of humor. (Russell Baker once wrote admiringly of Johnson's talent for the "comic vulgarity.") But this stuff is just unrefined anger and pettiness. You can listen to excerpts from the November and December 1972 tapes here.