Reforming health care? Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to come out as a proponent for universal health care coverage. Roosevelt, running as a third party candidate, announced his support for this during a time of Progressivism in American politics (great reading, the history around the late 1920’s and 30’s, by the way). Given the mood of the country, this idea had HUGE likelihood to actually be enacted when Roosevelt was elected. In fact, the American Medical Association was supportive of it as well as many influential lawmakers. It wasn’t partisan politics that led to its demise. It was the ultimate bummer, World War I that was one of the primary reasons for universal health care to be scuttled. Roosevelt had actually borrowed the idea from Germany, whose head of state Otto Von Bismarck had actually enacted this type of coverage in Germany. However, the United States’ mood towards Germany even before its entrance into the war made it quite unp...
Notes on this site and other things.