What Social Security Can Teach Us About the Future of Health Care

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truth-out.org/what-social-security-can-teach-us-about-future-health-care62328

At the heart of the right-wing attack on the new health care law’s individual mandate is the fact that law has the potential to become like Social Security, a popular entitlement that is an integral part of the American social fabric. Whether that promise is realized depends on no small measure on whether Congress will make improvements over time in the health care law to assure that health coverage is affordable.

If Social Security was the crowning achievement of the New Deal, health care was its greatest missed opportunity. FDR decided not to include health insurance in the retirement insurance measure for fear that opposition by the American Medical Association would end up sinking the whole package. Now 75 years after Social Security became law, the nation has finally enacted a legal promise to make health coverage affordable. It’s worth taking a look at the trajectory that Social Security took after its passage in order to understand the biggest challenge facing the health care law.

The history of Social Security after it became law was a great comfort to those of us who watched as the health care bill was continually weakened during the Congressional debate. It’s easy to forget now just how limited Social Security was when it first was enacted. The Act included meager payments to a limited set of workers and left out job categories that included most women and minorities. The NAACP said that it was “a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through. ” However, over the next 15 years Social Security was expanded to include surviving spouses and dependent children. Jobs that were dominated by women and people of color were added. The miserly benefits were enhanced over time too but it wasn’t until 1972 that cost of living adjustments became automatic.

Despite its original weaknesses, as Social Security was implemented an increasing number of Americans felt like they owned it and would benefit from it.


More at the link --