Is Mandating that Everyone Buy Insurance "Universal Health Care?"

What Did Harry Truman want for Americans?

Many people have talked about "universal health care" and some have tried to equate the new health care legislation with the kind of universal health care found in other civilized nations. But is it? What Congress has passed is far from universal and very different from the government-funded coverage in nations like Canada. The new American version of extending health care to more people consists of mandating that all Americans buy health insurance from the same insurance companies that have been giving us unaffordable pricing and generally denying coverage to anyone who might actually require health care. But some politicians, including Hillary Clinton, when she was running for President, invoked the name of Harry Truman, a fine Democratic President who finished out the term of Franklin Roosevelt and was elected to the office in 1948.

Invoking Truman (as well as Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton, other Presidents who took a run at reforming health care) just doesn't sound right to me. A law requiring an "individual mandate" for all Americans to buy health insurance is not what President Truman wanted for the nation. Going to my bookshelf to do some research, I consulted an excellent book, Paul Starr's Pulitzer Prize winning history of American medical practice, "The Social Transformation of American Medicine." He states that FDR had been planning to push for health coverage as part of social security, but he died before he could do that. Roosevelt wanted to affirm "an economic bill of rights, including a right to adequate medical care."

Californians almost got real universal health care -- 60 years ago!

Once Truman was President, he took up the cause. In November of 1945, Truman asked Congress to pass a national program to assure all Americans the right to adequate medical care. Interestingly, in 1945, Earl Warren was governor of California and he sought a universal health care plan for all Californians (Does this sound eerily familiar?) Governor Warren proposed a 3% tax on the first $4000 of income (split between employer and employee) to provide complete medical, dental and hospital coverage. The American Medical Assocation (AMA) immediately went on the attack. They hired a PR firm and levied a $25 fee on every member physician to fight both the California measure and the Truman bill. They coined the phrase "socialized medicine" which, during the Cold War era paranoia about Communism, resonated negatively with the general population.

Truman's Plan is Eventually Passed -- It's Medicare

Truman wanted coverage for all Americans, which was part of his "Economic Bill of Rights." He called it "prepayment of medical costs" by pooling all Americans together and providing federal dollars to cover all necessary medical and dental costs. But, responding to the huge spending campaign of his opposition (chiefly the doctors' lobby, the AMA), he looked for alternatives that he could get passed. He came up with the idea of a program for people over the age of 65. That, of course, later became Medicare, not passed until the administration of Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

→ Read Truman's full address on the subject, given in November of 1945.

Even Eisenhower Knew Private Insurance Would Never Provide Health Care to All Americans

Another interesting fact from the history of efforts to bring health care to all Americans: President Eisenhower (he was a Republican, remember?) in 1954 backed a bill for "reinsurance" that would have "repaid private plans for the benefits paid to private subscribers for "catastrophic' illness" (from another good book "In Failing Health" by Ed Cary). The purpose was to let private health insurance expand their coverage, which was skimpy at the time, and not widely used. But, predictably, the AMA opposed the bill and it never became law. I liked Ike when I was a little girl (he is the first President I can remember), and so did my parents, who were lifelong Democrats. He was the general, a hero of WWII, who warned us about the "military-industrial complex." He also wanted all of us to have health care.

The Mandate Plan is Mitt Romney's Plan

But of course, the new health care plan is basically a Republican plan too. It is essentially the same plan implemented by Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts. In a bi-partisan effort, the Massachusetts legislature passed the "individual mandate" to take effect on January 1, 2008. However, the plan is so far not living up to its promise. Very few of the uninsured who don't qualify for subsidies have signed up. It appears that many would rather pay the fine than be saddled with the huge monthly premiums of the insurance plans that are available.

What Would Mr "The Buck Stops Here" Think of a Plan Mandating Private Insurance?

What would the plain-speaking man from Independence Missouri, Harry Truman, think of plans that retain private insurance? Would he recognize any of his own intention for us in what we're getting from today's Congress? Or would he say, Shame on all of you for proposing a massive give-away to the insurance companies. This is not universal health care, no matter how many times you say that it is.

Real universal health care means all Americans have a right to necessary health care (not a right to buy insurance) and any "mandates" should be for the federal government to provide that through automatic universal enrollment of every American in a plan that provides the needed care. The funding should be a separate mechanism that is independent of the care provided. I think that is what Harry Truman had in mind.

Do Americans Support True Universal Health Care?

yes they do!

• In a New York Times/CBS News poll in February 2007, 64% said that the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans.
• In October 2003, 62% of respondents to a Washington Post/ABC News poll said they preferred "a universal health insurance program, in which everybody is covered under a program like Medicare that's run by the government and financed by taxpayers."
• In a 2007 Associated Press-Yahoo poll with the same wording, 65% supported a Medicare-for-all system.

What is Single-Payer Health Coverage? See Six Health Care Myths

Read some more great books about our failing health care system.

Please feel free to copy this article, send it to anyone, or reproduce it. If you have comments, you can email me at theresa@theseekerbooks.com.

Back to The Seeker Books.