The History of Health Care Reform: Theodore Roosevelt
In a White House conference held on March 5, 2009, President Barack Obama reminded his audience that a century ago, his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt had called for a national health care plan. President Obama told his audience: "The problems we face today are a direct consequence of actions that we failed to take yesterday. Since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and we have tinkered. We have tried and fallen short, we've stalled for time, and again we have failed to act because of Washington politics or industry lobbying."
The website www.politifact.com fact checked the accuracy of this statement, and they concluded this to be an accurate statement and that Theodore Roosevelt had in fact proposed reform on the scale of the near-universal health care. As their source, they consulted with two highly regarded biographers of Theodore Roosevelt: H.W. Brands (my favorite historian) and Kathleen Dalton. Both confirmed that in 1912, when the former Republican president was running as a Progressive Party candidate for what would have been his third term (after a four-year break), he advocated for a scheme of national health insurance. Health care was among a number of social issues championed by the Progressive (or "Bull Moose") Party. Other issues inc;uded Social and Industrial Justice, occupational safety, a child labor prohibition, a minimum wage, and "one day's rest in seven".
The actual party platform read as follows:
Health
We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal Government dealing with the public health into a single national health service without discrimination against or for any one set of therapeutic methods, school of medicine, or school of healing with such additional powers as may be necessary to enable it to perform efficiently such duties in the protection of the public from preventable diseases as may be properly undertaken by the Federal authorities, including the executing of existing laws regarding pure food, quarantine and cognate subjects, the promotion of vital statistics and the extension of the registration area of such statistics, and co-operation with the health activities of the various States and cities of the Nation.
The party platform also read "The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use."
H. R. Brands interpreted this as meaning "what this envisioned was pretty much what FDR accomplished with Social Security, but with health insurance added." Kathleen Dalton added "We don’t know the specifics of the plan. The roots were probably British, though he knew about German health insurance." But Brands cautioned "It's worth remembering that health care was a far smaller concern in those days. Doctors had few medicines, and most people died or got better on their own. The biggest issues were public health — eradicating malaria, cleaning up water supplies, and so on."
Jennie Kronenfeld, a sociology professor at Arizona State University, noted that "this was the first inclusion of a health insurance plank in any national platform with a major candidate, although the Socialist Party had endorsed a compulsory system as early as 1904."
The website www.politifact.com fact checked the accuracy of this statement, and they concluded this to be an accurate statement and that Theodore Roosevelt had in fact proposed reform on the scale of the near-universal health care. As their source, they consulted with two highly regarded biographers of Theodore Roosevelt: H.W. Brands (my favorite historian) and Kathleen Dalton. Both confirmed that in 1912, when the former Republican president was running as a Progressive Party candidate for what would have been his third term (after a four-year break), he advocated for a scheme of national health insurance. Health care was among a number of social issues championed by the Progressive (or "Bull Moose") Party. Other issues inc;uded Social and Industrial Justice, occupational safety, a child labor prohibition, a minimum wage, and "one day's rest in seven".
The actual party platform read as follows:
Health
We favor the union of all the existing agencies of the Federal Government dealing with the public health into a single national health service without discrimination against or for any one set of therapeutic methods, school of medicine, or school of healing with such additional powers as may be necessary to enable it to perform efficiently such duties in the protection of the public from preventable diseases as may be properly undertaken by the Federal authorities, including the executing of existing laws regarding pure food, quarantine and cognate subjects, the promotion of vital statistics and the extension of the registration area of such statistics, and co-operation with the health activities of the various States and cities of the Nation.
The party platform also read "The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use."
H. R. Brands interpreted this as meaning "what this envisioned was pretty much what FDR accomplished with Social Security, but with health insurance added." Kathleen Dalton added "We don’t know the specifics of the plan. The roots were probably British, though he knew about German health insurance." But Brands cautioned "It's worth remembering that health care was a far smaller concern in those days. Doctors had few medicines, and most people died or got better on their own. The biggest issues were public health — eradicating malaria, cleaning up water supplies, and so on."
Jennie Kronenfeld, a sociology professor at Arizona State University, noted that "this was the first inclusion of a health insurance plank in any national platform with a major candidate, although the Socialist Party had endorsed a compulsory system as early as 1904."