I am proud to have fought over the years for the idea that health care is a human right

[Uncle Joe]

Link to tweet

This was well done.

[Magoo48]

1. How can one be a Democrat and not support universal healthcare?

[Joe941]

2. Good question... really good.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Apparently it's not that difficult, just talk about how important it is from some conceptual level

while you're campaigning and then forget about it afterwards or start equivocating after you state that you're for it, just muddy up the waters from a political point of view.

The for profit "health" insurance corporations, big Pharma and conflict of interest laden corporate media conglomerates that love commercial buying big bucks and their personal large salaries from the status quo are most powerful adversaries and that will never stop being the case until they have been neutered and that wont happen until we do have Medicare for All.

That is the hard truth of reality in America.

[The Valley Below]

7. How can one support universal healthcare and not be a Democrat?

[LongtimeAZDem]

8. Boom!

[Magoo48]

13. "Boom"--what does that even mean?

[Uncle Joe]

14. In this instance,

I have no idea.

[squirecam]

19. Well

Keep reading it until you get it.

[LongtimeAZDem]

16. Whether intended or not, the post I responded to was a smack at someone's bonafides

[Magoo48]

12. Independent voters and Democratic Socialist voters supporting Democrats.

[NurseJackie]

44. Perfect!

[airplaneman]

10. But they love their employer offered health-care and don't want anything to change.

And are they not smart enough to make their own choices.
Please don't change anything just leave things the way they are or you are taking things away from me.

[BuffaloJackalope]

49. some I've seen right here ...

[ismnotwasm]

4. Hilary Clinton in 1993 fought harder than anyone I've ever seen.

For universal healthcare

[Uncle Joe]

5. Personally I believe if Bill Clinton had given his Vice-President Al Gore that task

instead of his wife, the results would've been much greater.

Al had been a Congressman for eight years, a Senator for eight years, he was the major political driving force behind opening up the Internet to the people and was on the forefront in regards to global warming climate change.

Much of his growing years were spent in the corridors of Washington as his dad was a Senator.

The Clintons in 1992 were new to the scene and the workings of Congress.

1992: Desire to head healthcare reform usurped by Hillary

Apart from selecting a secretary of the treasury and other principals of the president’s economic team, designating who would oversee the health care initiative was the major decision affecting the new administration’s domestic agenda. Al Gore had indicated to the president-elect that this was the job he might most like to take on, drawing on his legislative skills from his years in the Senate and lending it the prestige of his new office. Clinton was intrigued, but worried that the job would demand too much of the vice president’s time. Hillary had a different objection: she felt Gore, not she, would dominate domestic policy if responsible for health care.

(snip)

https://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Al_Gore_Health_Care.htm

Bill thought it would "take up too much of his Vice-President's time" or at least that's what he stated, well if universal health care being the goal was of such great importance during the campaign for President, why not have your Vice-President spend serious time on it?

The thing about Presidential Elections, is that the names on the ballots are the President and Vice-President not the President and First Lady or First Gentleman.

P.S. On top of all that Bill and Hillary were already fighting against the "White Water" scandal beginning in 1992 that weakened Hillary's political standing in regards to pushing anything through Congress including health care reform in 1993.

[OldRed2450]

11. Bill Clinton ran on Hillary being a part of his administration.

In 1992 he called it 2 for the price of 1. Women wore T-shirts that read, "I'm voting for Hillary's husband."

Still, I find it offensive that Bernie leads people to believe he was the first and only. Nothing this big has ever happened over night. Lasting progress is made incrementally, Bernie railed against Hillary care.. So he essentially was a part of slowing the progress.

[ehrnst]

23. Yep. Thank you for reminding us of that. The GOP, especially Gingrich was pushing the

"arrogant, doesn't know her place, she's the wifey" narrative against health care reform, and boy did sexist men, even those who claimed to be 'enlightened' take to that like flies to shit. Once faced with a woman taking some of their thunder, some whipped out dismissal of her as "overstepping" pretty quickly. Ted Kennedy wasn't threatened, and as a result, he and HRC got actual reforms into place (SCHIP), unlike others who talked a lot about it without much in the way of results.

It looks like some things just never change...even among self-described progressives.

Women need to just stay in their lane when it comes to wielding power, or everything just goes to hell, doesn't it?

[ehrnst]

22. Yes, let's reduce Hillary Rodham Clinton, civil rights activist, and skilled lawyer to "his wife."

Last edited Tue Nov 19, 2019, 01:31 PM - Edit history (3)

That diminshment of her with words to a "Mrs." just says so much, doesn't it?

Personally I believe if Bill Clinton had given his Vice-President Al Gore that task instead of his wife, the results would've been much greater.

That's the attitude the GOP had towards her, wasn't it. Doesn't know her place, doesn't just shut up and stare adoringly, then express her ambitions out of the public eye like a good political wife should. I think they exploited that very view of her as just "his wife" to defeat what could have been the biggest step forward in health care reform since Medicare and Medicaid. Ironic that someone who claims to value health care reform continues it here, isn't it? How progressive.

Fortunately, the most enlightened and expert health policy rep on the Hill, Ted Kennedy, wasn't threatened by the little woman's refusal to hide and apologize for being an accomplished, intelligent and capable civil rights activist and laywer. As a result Kennedy and HRC actually got affordable healthcare to more people via SCHIP, when NO ONE ELSE was accomplishing ANYTHING towards that goal but talk.

I'm sure that especially ruffled some male egos, especially on the Hill, that a mere ball and chain was presuming to take on (and successfully so, in the case of SCHIP) what they considered to be their own personal political brand.

I've seen evidence that it still does.



Especially considering that "The Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007” was supported by HRC, but opposed by others who considered themselves health care reform titans.

[ehrnst]

28. So, you believe the primary reason she was chosen because she was his wife

Last edited Tue Nov 19, 2019, 02:28 PM - Edit history (1)

not her background, education, intelligence, skill, experience in looking over legislation in Arkansas, or general competency working in groups. Loud and clear.

However, I think it's telling you omitted that her success included getting SCHIP into existence with Ted Kennedy, which is more actual affordable health care legislation than Al Gore and Bernie Sanders have accomplished to date. But that doesn't support the dismissing of HRC as an effective force for actual, measurable health care reform accomplishment. For millions of kids, anyway, if that matters at all.



But yes, Al Gore certainly never was a challenger for any office that Senator Sanders wanted, and very significantly was never a wife. Lord knows his own wife's controversies were TOTALLY a non-starter for his own POTUS run, right? Also - he's fallen in behind Bernie on M4A, so that's something that TOTES makes him far more qualified - retroactively - than the wife that challenged Bernie, by even many who had until then damned him part of that problematic, status quo "Democratic establishment," to would have made all the difference for people who can't afford health care if not for that wife.

The unseemly woman who dares not to dissappear and keep her mouth shut, but who is at the same time damned for supporting her husband's less than wonderful policies (like she was told to, or he wouldn't be re-elected) as being just as bad as if she had written and voted on the legislation herself, is the root of all things dastardly, "status quo" and establishment' apparently, be the 'space time continuum' take place in 17th Century Massachusetts, or 21st Century Washington.

[Uncle Joe]

29. You're jumping ahead of time in regards to your analysis

(snip)

CHIP was formulated in the aftermath of the failure of President Bill Clinton's comprehensive health care reform proposal. Legislation to create CHIP was co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, and received strong support from First Lady Hillary Clinton. Despite opposition from some conservatives, SCHIP was included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which President Clinton signed into law in August 1997. At the time of its creation, SCHIP represented the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since the establishment of Medicaid in 1965.[citation needed] The Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act of 2009 extended CHIP and expanded the program to cover an additional 4 million children and pregnant women, and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 extended CHIP's authorization through 2027.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Health_Insurance_Program

1993 was the year we were talking about, that's when Bill chose Hillary over his Vice-President to lead the health care effort; which failed.

The Clinton health care plan was a 1993 healthcare reform package proposed by the administration of President Bill Clinton and closely associated with the chair of the task force devising the plan, First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The president had campaigned heavily on health care in the 1992 presidential election. The task force was created in January 1993, but its own processes were somewhat controversial and drew litigation. Its goal was to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration's first-term agenda. The president delivered a major health care speech to the US Congress in September 1993. During his speech he proposed an enforced mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees.

(snip)

Instead of uniting behind the original proposal, many Democrats offered a number of competing plans of their own. Hillary Clinton was drafted by the Clinton Administration to head a new Task Force and sell the plan to the American people, which ultimately backfired amid the barrage from the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries and considerably diminished her own popularity. On September 26, 1994, the final compromise Democratic bill was declared dead by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell.[1]

(snip)

The 1994 mid-term election became, in the opinion of one media observer, a "referendum on big government – Hillary Clinton had launched a massive health-care reform plan that wound up strangled by its own red tape".[29] In that 1994 election, the Republican revolution, led by Newt Gingrich, gave the GOP control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time since the 83rd Congress of 1953–1954, ending prospects for a Clinton-sponsored health care overhaul.

(snip)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993

The entire space time continuum would've changed in regards to your post.

"I think it's telling you omitted that her success included getting SCHIP into existence with Ted Kennedy, which is more actual affordable health care legislation than Al Gore and Bernie Sanders have accomplished to date."

[ehrnst]

30. You seem to have created a "timeline" out of whole cloth to attack as faulty.

Not suprising since I brought up some rather inconvenient and prickly facts.

Here it is again, with notes, so it's more understandable for you:

Fortunately, the most enlightened and expert health policy rep on the Hill, Ted Kennedy, wasn't threatened by the little woman's refusal to hide and apologize for being an accomplished, intelligent and capable civil rights activist and laywer.

No mention of a year other than it was during the time she was the wife of the POTUS, which would have been on or after January of 1993. Still with me?

As a result Kennedy and HRC actually got affordable healthcare to more people via SCHIP, when NO ONE ELSE was accomplishing ANYTHING towards that goal but talk.

That would have been 1997. And?

Perhaps you're getting confused about the term "as a result." That's referring to the result of him not dismissing HRC as a an overbearing, ill-qualified harpy, like some others did from the time that she opened her mouth after the inauguration and talked about something other than her plans to re-decorate the WH. Does that clear things up for you?

"I think it's telling you omitted that her success included getting SCHIP into existence with Ted Kennedy, which is more actual affordable health care legislation than Al Gore and Bernie Sanders have accomplished to date."

What part of your "space time continuum" does that violate? Perhaps you are equating/confusing proposed affordable health care reform legislation with health care legislation that was successful getting into existence, and actually delivering affordable health care to actual people - even if it was just 8 million kids.

I don't know of any health care reform legislation that Bernie Sanders or Al Gore put forth that passed and got implemented since that time - well, at least in the "space time continuum" that I inhabit, which doesn't assign blame to any and all failures of Democrats and health care reform on the wife.

However, since you delight in bringing in tertiary information damning that wife for us not having universal health care, here's an alternative POV that indicts the "Single Payer or Bust" mentality for the state of health care in the US...

Asked about his greatest regret as a legislator, Ted Kennedy would usually cite his refusal to cut a deal with Richard Nixon on health care.

. . . [in 1971], Nixon asked Congress to require for the first time that all companies provide a health plan for their employees, with federal subsidies for low-income workers. Nixon was particularly intrigued by a new idea called health maintenance organizations, which held the promise of providing high-quality care at lower prices by relying on salaried physicians to manage and coordinate patient care.

At first, Kennedy rejected Nixon’s proposal as nothing more than a bonanza for the insurance industry that would create a two-class system of health care in America. But after Nixon won reelection, Kennedy began a series of secret negotiations with the White House that almost led to a public agreement. In the end, Nixon backed out after receiving pressure from small-business owners and the American Medical Association. And Kennedy himself decided to back off after receiving heavy pressure from labor leaders, who urged him to hold out for a single-payer system once Democrats recaptured the White House in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Thirty-five year later, the single-payer dream of Democratic liberals still remains politically out of reach . . .

The simple lesson from this story — and certainly the one Kennedy himself drew — is that when it comes to historic breakthroughs in social policy, make the best deal you can get, leaving it to subsequent generations to perfect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703919.html

So maybe it wasn't all that wife's fault, eh?

[George II]

32. Didn't Sanders vote against SCHIP in 2017?

https://www.axios.com/bernie-sanders-was-the-only-vote-against-the-fda-bill-1513304658-c8e065ab-0c42-4623-a53a-5248563293ee.html

Bernie Sanders was the only vote against the FDA bill

The Senate passed the reauthorization of the FDA user fees yesterday by a lopsided vote of 94-1. Who was the one? It was Bernie Sanders, returning to his pre-presidential campaign form as the guy who doesn't care if the army is with him or not.

So much for supporting SCHIP and voting "with the Democrats"!

For the record:

?w=600&ssl=1

[ehrnst]

33. Details...

[betsuni]

54. Thank you, didn't know that.

[OldRed2450]

34. Hillary lobbied people on the hill for CHIP

and worked hard getting everyone on board.

You like to diminish her accomplishments often. Is it because like you said "she was the wife"?

The voters knew before they voted that Hillary would have a big role. Women had bumper stickers and T-shirts that read, "I'm voting for Hillary's Husband."

[betsuni]

56. That reminds me.

Of the time President Clinton visited Japan. Prime minister Mori couldn't speak English. His staff taught him the basic "How are you?" "I'm fine, and you?" "Me, too" greeting. But when the time came what came out was "Who are you?" Bill made a little joke by answering "I'm Hillary's husband." Mori answered "Me, too." Whogate was quite embarrassing for Mori.

[betsuni]

50. +1

[StevieM]

60. It is sad that you refer to Whitewater as a scandal.

In reality, it was the original swiftboating operation. Nothing more.

And nothing was going to happen on health care as long as the GOP had the filibuster.

[The Valley Below]

9. Millions and millions of poor children have health coverage because of HRC's efforts.

Progress is progressive.

[ehrnst]

24. That irony will be lost on some.

[George II]

6. Fighting since at least 1987 and still no "Medicare for All"?

[Uncle Joe]

15. That is indeed a sad statement but I don't blame Bernie for it.

[George II]

17. Who should we blame then?

[Uncle Joe]

18. Who hasn't supported it since 1987?

I would start with that.

[George II]

20. Perhaps it's the basic concept of the program? If an influential leader....

....hasn't been able to convince enough legislators over the course of 30 years, it's appears to be one of two things - his plan is flawed or he isn't the influential leader some would have us believe.

What other option is there?

[Uncle Joe]

21. "What other option is there?" Just for starters

Perhaps the role of the for profit "health" insurance industries and Big Pharma's massive spending in support for or against politicians' elections and reelections depending on their stance in regards to universal health care should be taken into account?

Perhaps the corporate media conglomerates' elephant in the room financial conflicts of interest play a part as well, as they and there well paid pundits reap the rewards of said massive commercial spending?

Perhaps because politicians have to spend an inordinate amount of time just raising money for their next re-election so they turned to the people and institutions with the big bucks?

Perhaps it's because wealth and income disparity has become so acute in the U.S. over the past 40 years or so (three people own more wealth than the bottom half of the nation) that this economic dysfunctionality has greatly neutered the power of the average American's voice being taken seriously?

Perhaps Citizens United made a bad situation worse in all that as well?

[JoeOtterbein]

27. +1000!

[ehrnst]

31. Or it could be that like most of the rest of the industrialized world has discovered

Single Payer isn't the only or best way to acheive UHC.

It didn't go through in '71 either. However, those who failed at that time had the self awareness and ability to learn from the failure rather than blame their failure on someone or something else, and keep on doing the same thing over and over and over, because it's their political brand...

Asked about his greatest regret as a legislator, Ted Kennedy would usually cite his refusal to cut a deal with Richard Nixon on health care.
................................................
The simple lesson from this story -- and certainly the one Kennedy himself drew -- is that when it comes to historic breakthroughs in social policy, make the best deal you can get, leaving it to subsequent generations to perfect. That's what happened with Medicare and Medicaid, and there is no reason to think it wouldn't happen again with universal coverage and reform of the health insurance market.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703919.html

His and HRC's success on SCHIP no doubt drew from the ability to learn from one's mistakes...

But I'll bite - how does one defeat the massive commercial spending, and the corporate media conglomerates, if that's what it's going to take to get MFA into existence? If that's an obstacle, what's the plan for scaling it?

I mean a candidate could promise solar power on half the homes and businesses in the US in eight years (Oh wait - did that other candidate say 6 years? I'll do it in TWO years!!!!!" or when he/she knows they can always just blame "big coal" or "big gas" for "not allowing it," when they fail to get it passed.

And if someone asks them what the logistics and cost of getting all that solar on homes in two years logistically and financially, they can just point at that person and say, "keep on shilling for BIG COAL!!"

And yes, I'm supporting Elizabeth Warren, in part because she has the intellectual agility to change and retool when presented with credible and expert new data, instead of simply trying to discredit the new data to maintain their status quo talking points.

[The Valley Below]

35. Could be that being a "party of one" isn't the way to accomplish positive change.

Could be bad plans.

Maybe both.

[ehrnst]

36. Tell us who you are talking about who is to blame for the health care crisis.

Why don't you start with that name?

Or you could tell us who has talked and talked about something for years, never changing the strategy, without it actually getting it to come to fruition, and doesn't have the self-awareness to examine where the fault may lie in them, and refuses to even discuss, let alone learn from the lessons of others who got out there tried to make it a reality in their state?

https://www.npr.org/2017/09/13/550757713/why-bernie-sanders-single-payer-health-care-plan-failed-in-vermont

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/why-californias-single-payer-proposal-was-doomed-to-fail/

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/14/16296132/colorado-single-payer-ballot-initiative-failure

[JoeOtterbein]

26. K n R

Go Bernie!

[ehrnst]

37. 1971: "We believe that health care is a human right" - ''Our Bodies, Ourselves'

In 1971, the first edition of the feminist classic Our Bodies, Ourselves argued that profit-driven medicine had led to an epidemic of unnecessary hysterectomies while women without access to primary care died of preventable cervical and uterine cancers. The authors declared, “We believe that health care is a human right and that a society should provide free health care for itself. "

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447696/

[Skidmore]

59. Oh, yes.

That book was required reading in a class I took in college back then.

[ehrnst]

38. 1947: NAACP leader demands a "vigorous and forthright confirmation" of national health insurance.

NAACP leader Dr Montague Cobb in 1947 called for the National Medical Association, the organization of Black doctors, to attack racial discrimination in medical care, and also demanded a “vigorous and forthright confirmation” of national health insurance. The NAACP, the National Medical Association, and the Urban League have been longtime, if critical, supporters of proposals for universal medical coverage.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447696/

[ehrnst]

39. 70's: labor-led Committee for Nat'l Health Insurance held the first conference on women & UHC

In the early 1970s, the labor-led Committee for National Health Insurance held the first conference on women and universal health care.

Feminists’ demands for safe and legal abortion have been portrayed as emphasizing individual rights, especially since the Supreme Court based its Roe v Wade decision on a “right to privacy,” which some scholars have argued precluded the establishment of a “medical entitlement” to abortion.32 But abortion rights activism could lead to a broader critique of the health care system. In one example, the Young Lords Party, one of the few Puerto Rican nationalist organizations to support abortion access, vocally protested the 1970 death of a Puerto Rican woman during a legal abortion in a New York City hospital. Her treatment at the hands of the public hospital system “proved that legal abortion was not the answer for poor and Third World women who did not have access to quality health care,” and the Young Lords demanded “community control” of city health care institutions.33 Reproductive rights activists found that in a stratified health care system, access to safe and legal abortion was a right in name only.

The women’s health movement has greatly influenced campaigns for national health care. In the early 1970s, the labor-led Committee for National Health Insurance held the first conference on women and universal health care. At that and later conferences, feminist perspectives increasingly altered the reform agenda. Women labor leaders and others noted that the majority of the underinsured and uninsured were women, and that employment-based health coverage implicitly discriminated against women, who were heavily concentrated in sectors with no benefits: part-time, temporary, service, and small business employment and homemaking. Feminists criticized the health care system’s emphasis on high-tech hospital treatment at the expense of primary and preventive care. During the Clinton health reform campaign, the Older Women’s League organized a Campaign for Women’s Health to demand that health reform include primary, preventive, and long-term care and coverage for mental health, HIV testing and counseling, domestic violence screening, and full reproductive health care and family planning. Several of the women’s demands were incorporated into the Health Security bill.34

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447696/

[ehrnst]

40. 1917: Pauline Newman: "the ILGWU is in favor of health insurance and social insurance."

Former garment worker Pauline Newman, who headed the Union Health Center for 5 decades, argued that union-run health care threw into sharp relief the vastly greater needs of the unorganized. “[T]he great mass of workers are not in any position to look after their own sickness and their own problems,” said Newman in 1917. “That is why [the ILGWU] is in favor of health insurance and social insurance. We can take care of ourselves, but who are we? A mere hundred and fifty thousand.” Newman and the ILGWU were the most active union supporters of Progressive Era compulsory insurance proposals, and Newman continued to advocate universal health care for the rest of her long life.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447696/

[ehrnst]

41. 1915: The American Association for Labor Legislation's (AALL) proposal

1915, progressive reformers proposed a system of compulsory health insurance to protect workers against both wage loss and medical costs during sickness. The American Association for Labor Legislation’s (AALL) proposal, modeled on existing programs in Germany and England, was debated throughout the country and introduced as legislation in several states.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447696/

[ehrnst]

42. 1920's: the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care (CCMC),

The most prominent reform group of the 1920s, the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care (CCMC), which was financed by large foundations and made up of physicians, academic economists, and representatives of private interest groups, again relied on research rather than popular mobilization. The CCMC’s modest proposals for group medicine and voluntary insurance were denounced by the American Medical Association (AMA) as “socialized medicine,” but the battle was fought in the pages of newspapers and academic journals, with no attempt to enlist ordinary people as advocates for the reformers’ recommendations.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447696/#r34

[ehrnst]

43. 1938 Gallup poll: 81% believed that "government should be responsible for

for medical care for people who can't afford it.”

The belief that health care is a right is deeply ingrained in the American consciousness, especially government's obligation to ensure health care for those who are too poor to pay for it. When any benefit is regarded as a right, Americans automatically assume that it is the government's responsibility to honor it. The public has held this conviction for more than half a century. A 1938 Gallup poll reported that 81 percent of adults nationwide believed that “government should be responsible for medical care for people who can't afford it.”

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.14.1.7

[ehrnst]

45. 1971: Ted Kennedy pushes for Single Payer

Asked about his greatest regret as a legislator, Ted Kennedy would usually cite his refusal to cut a deal with Richard Nixon on health care.

It was back in 1971 and President Nixon was concerned that he would once again have to face a Kennedy in the next year's election -- in this case a Kennedy with a proposal to extend health care to all Americans. Feeling the need to offer an alternative, Nixon asked Congress to require for the first time that all companies provide a health plan for their employees, with federal subsidies for low-income workers. Nixon was particularly intrigued by a new idea called health maintenance organizations, which held the promise of providing high-quality care at lower prices by relying on salaried physicians to manage and coordinate patient care.

At first, Kennedy rejected Nixon's proposal as nothing more than a bonanza for the insurance industry that would create a two-class system of health care in America. But after Nixon won reelection, Kennedy began a series of secret negotiations with the White House that almost led to a public agreement. In the end, Nixon backed out after receiving pressure from small-business owners and the American Medical Association. And Kennedy himself decided to back off after receiving heavy pressure from labor leaders, who urged him to hold out for a single-payer system once Democrats recaptured the White House in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

..............................

The simple lesson from this story -- and certainly the one Kennedy himself drew -- is that when it comes to historic breakthroughs in social policy, make the best deal you can get, leaving it to subsequent generations to perfect. That's what happened with Medicare and Medicaid, and there is no reason to think it wouldn't happen again with universal coverage and reform of the health insurance market.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703919.html

[sheshe2]

46. Brava Bella.

Your last 8 posts just knocked it out of the park.

You are my hero.

[betsuni]

48. Thank you!

History.

[sheshe2]

51. Ernst won the thread!

[betsuni]

52. And I'm bookmarking for encore postings in future.

[sheshe2]

53. Great Idea!

Thank you, betsuni!

[Hortensis]

58. Fact-solid history. Liberal Democrats are the healthcare people.

Thanks for the segue to the big picture. Yes, Sanders has spoken for healthcare reform for years, but unfortunately he's chosen to do it by speaking separately and usually strongly against Democratic Party efforts.

[George II]

47. ehrnst, nice list. And there's also John Dingell Sr. and Jr.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Insurance_Act_of_2005

National Health Insurance Act of 2005

The National Health Insurance Act of 2005 was a bill introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 15 on January 4, 2005. The bill was introduced by Democratic Michigan Congressman John Dingell, Jr.. This bill was referred to the United States House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, where it died at the end of the 109th U.S. Congress. This bill has been introduced into every Congress since 1956 by Dingell, and before that since 1933 by his father, Michigan Representative John Dingell, Sr.. The bill has not been brought to the House floor for debate.

Other bills related to Health Care in the 109th Congress:

H.R. 676: Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act of 2005
H.R. 1200: American Health Security Act of 2005

I believe John Dingell Jr.'s wife, Debbie (who replaced him in the House) has also introduced this every year since 2005.

[revmclaren]

55. It seems to me that there is only one politician

that consistently rides the coattails of other politicians ideas, and then claims to own the coat.

IMHO.

ONLY!!! 2019 and beyond.

[NurseJackie]

57. Wow! That's an excellent way to describe it! TOTALLY TRUE!