Sales Job

In Rebooting the American Dream Thom Hartmann has a chapter about our lack of universal health, examined in the context of Medicare's creation in 1965.

Based on this 1995 account by Robert M. Ball, Social Security commissioner and a principal in writing the legislation thirty years earlier, the Johnson administration had expected Medicare would be only the first step in creating a health insurance program for all Americans. Ball writes that—

... all of us who developed Medicare and fought for it... had been advocates for universal national health insurance. We saw insurance for the elderly as a fallback position, which we advocated solely because it seemed to have the best chance politically. Although the public record contains some explicit denials, we expected Medicare to be a first step toward universal national health insurance, perhaps with "Kiddicare" as another step.

Ball notes of the opponents—

The AMA's opposition approached hysteria. Members were assessed dues for the first time to create a $3.5 million war chest-very big money for the times-with which the association conducted an unparalleled campaign of vituperation against the advocates of national health insurance. The AMA also exerted strict discipline over the few of its members who took an "unethical" position favoring the government program. This was a warm-up for the later campaign against Medicare.

Hartmann adds—

The AMA was so vehemently opposed to government-offered health insurance that it even hired Hollywood actor and tobacco industry spokesman Ronald Reagan to produce an LP record... which would be played at coffee klatches held by doctors' wives nationwide to generate letters to Congress against the Medicare plan.