OP/ED: Affordable Care Act a Bi-Partisan Effort

By Matt Murray

After the Supreme Court ruled on the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans were quick to attack the Democrats.  Republicans are saying that they do not want “Obamacare.”  NH Gov Candidate Ovide Lamontagne said: “Opposing Obamacare is a top priority.”  The irony in this entire battle of a national healthcare is that for nearly 100 years Republicans and Democrats have been pushing for some system to protect all Americans.  Lets look back at how this new law came to pass.

The first instance of a national healthcare came from Republican President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. “Roosevelt champions national health insurance as he unsuccessfully tries to ride his progressive Bull Moose Party back to the White House. (1)”

In 1929  a group of Dallas school teachers try to find a way to fight the rising costs of healthcare.  They contract with “Baylor Hospital to pay 50 cents a month to ‘pre-pay’ for up to one month of hospital care per year (2)”  This action by the teachers was the first “group” insurance plan.  This later spawn the insurance giant Blue Cross.

By the 1930s Americans were hurting like never before.  The national economy was spiraling out of control.  With so many out of work and in need of medical attention President Franklin D. Roosevelt again pushed for a national health care.   By 1935,  the President had changed his focus and opted for social security.

By the mid 1940s, America was once again at war.  For those who were not fighting overseas, they worked in manufacturing facilities.  Many of these companies began to offer health insurance programs as “benefits” to their employees.  This created a more stable and loyal workforce.

Over the next few decades, Presidents Truman and Kennedy both pushed for health care programs.  Both fought diligently but could not get the plan through Congress.

By 1965, Lyndon Johnson is President.  He used his “legendary arm-twisting and a Congress dominated by his fellow Democrats lead to creation of two landmark government health programs: Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor”.  This is the first nation medical program to successfully make it through Congress.

Once again the Republicans push the idea of  national healthcare.  In 1974, President Richard Nixon tried to pass a law that would mandate that all employers to provide health care to their workers.  He also proposed creating “federal subsidies to allow everyone else to buy private insurance”.  Unfortunately, other political problems, Watergate, forced President Nixon to give up this dream.   However 1976, President Carter tried to pick up where Nixon left off but the economic downturn of the 1970s make it very difficult for people to accept the idea.

It would be another 10 years before the any new changes to health programs would come about.  In 1986 “President Ronald Reagan signed COBRA” into law. COBRA is a program that forced all employer to allow workers to retain all of their health insurance coverages for up to 18 months after the employee left the company.   In 1988, President Reagan made a dramatic change to Medicare.

President Reagan and Congress added a “prescription drug program and catastrophic care coverage to Medicare.”   The program was short-lived. It was repealed one year later. This idea did not die completely, in 2003 President George W. Bush passed a prescription drug program in a massive Medicare expansion.

In 1993, President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton, pushed for a national health program. Their 1,300 page program, “required employers to cover all employees, and creates the mandate that everyone have health insurance”. This program died in the Senate.  However in 1997, President Clinton did pass  ”bipartisan legislation creating a state-federal program to provide coverage for millions of children in families of modest means whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid.”

So as you can see the idea of a national healthcare program has been around for nearly 100 years.  Republicans and Democrats have been pushing for more mandatory coverage for employees, and trying to find ways to cover everyone else. While it took 100 years to get a truly national health care passed we have made tremendous advancements in that time. We have gone from having no insurance at all to group insurance to Medicare/Medicade, to now the Affordable Care Act.

We need our elected officials and candidates to stop trying to take away what America has been fighting for, for over 100 years.  We need to keep moving forward not trying to move backwards.  If we do not move forward it could take another 100 years to pass a health care plan again.

Matt Murray is a Nashua resident and proud union member. He is also a frequent blogger for Nashua Patch and oversees the New Hampshire Labor News Network site.

1.  Health Care Reform Through History.

2. Health Insurance in the United States.