It's really difficult to find an objective and comprehensive history of healthcare in the U.S., without it becoming a multi-chapter dissertation. Here's one from the NIH, and Here's another from the Kaiser foundation.
For the purpose of this thread, this summary is perhaps a happy medium.
From the last link:
That portion of American health care history is usually cited as a pivotal moment, and (as noted in the last paragraph) became the "standard" system we have used since.As the U.S. entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor, attention fell from the publicly-provided health insurance debate. Essentially all government focus was placed on the war effort, including the Stabilization Act of 1942, which was written to fight inflation by limiting wage increases.
Since U.S. businesses were prohibited from offering higher salaries, they began looking for other ways to recruit new employees as well as incentivizing existing ones to stay. Their solution was the foundation of employer-sponsored health insurance as we know it today.
Employees enjoyed this benefit, as they didn’t have to pay taxes on their new form of compensation, and they were able to secure healthcare for themselves and their families.
America’s entry into World War II also brought tens of thousands of workers pouring into the Henry Kaiser Shipyards in California, Washington, and Oregon, to meet the county's demand for warships.
Facing the same issue he did with his dam project, of providing healthcare to more than 30,000 employees working in fairly remote areas, Kaiser once again contracted with Dr. Garfield (who President Roosevelt has to release from his military obligation) to organize and run a pre-paid group practice for these shipyard workers. This pre-paid arrangement of care would eventually become the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan, which would eventually evolve into our present-day managed care system of HMOs and PPOs.
Critics rightly point out that the problem with that system is that it "hides" the true costs of healthcare. Employees paid nothing, or a pittance, for their healthcare as compared to the costs. Very few people have any idea of what healthcare costs, until they get an astronomical bill from a hospital. The system worked, until it didn't. Democrats largely tried to implement healthcare reform, and Obama was successful at getting it done although at great cost in political capital.
The Obama solution has solved very little, and republicans aren't interested in much but throwing it out with no real replacement. It's a wicked problem, and shouting hyperbole and buzz-phrases at each other certainly won't solve it; so let's try not to do that in this thread, please.
I think there is merit to the "pivot" issue - that healthcare is one of the few (if not only) expenses the average American is completely ignorant of (myself included). You have no doubt what the cost of your groceries, utilities, mortgage, car payment, etc... is, but you go to a doctor and wait to see what you will end up owing - and are often shocked (and sometimes bankrupted) at/by the bill. 30 years ago my father was charged $1500/day for a hospital room. Just the bed space. A Tylenol was billed at $7.50 per pill. That's outrageous.
One solution is nationalized healthcare, which has many problems which we can address. One is a return to the system we had before Obamacare, which also has problems we can address (namely that it is too expensive when not covered by an employer). A more recent trend is variations of a healthcare co-op. I can provide more information on that for those that need it.
I'm not really sure how to present the question here. What is the "best" solution, and what are the pros/cons? What responsibilities does the individual have, and how do we get the citizen on board? There are reasonable options, and reasonable objections. Can we discuss those reasonably?
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