Expensive Insurance

Expensive National Medical Health Insurance

Proposals for a national health insurance system were heard as early as 1912, when President Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party platform (following the example of Germany and other European nations) called 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." Shortly thereafter, the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) formed a Committee on Social Insurance comprising prominent members of the (AMA) and others. The committee recommended a compulsory plan covering the majority of workers.

Efforts to enact the AALL plan at the state level failed, largely due to opposition from organized medicine and other conservative elements that considered it a harbinger of radical social change. The AMA initially called the plan the "inauguration of a great social movement" (1917), but rapidly changed course and consistently opposed mandatory health insurance since that time. In 1920 the AMA House of Delegates resolved to oppose ", controlled or regulated by any state or the federal government." The labor leader Samuel Gompers joined in opposition, apparently fearing that benefits gained through legislation rather than negotiation would be vulnerable to later repeal or limitation.