Case Analysis

Universal Healthcare in the United States has been a fairly large topic of discussion over the last couple years, but that’s not where it all started. It was originally discussed back in 1911 by Louis D. Brandeis. Subsequently it was part of Theodore Roosevelt’s platform in 1912 as well as the primary agenda item of the First American Conference on Social Insurance in 1913. Debate continued on the topic for nearly half a century until Medicare was signed into law in 1965. High spending and growing costs caused there to be calls for reform and review of Medicare in the early 1990’s.

President Obama signed into law on March 23, 2010 a bill that was originally introduced on September 16, 2009. This law’s title was H R 3590 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The open congress summary begins as follows:

This is the major health care reform bill, signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 20190. It would expand health care coverage to 31 million currently uninsured Americans through a combination of cost controls, subsidies, and mandates. It is estimated to cost $848 billion over a 10 year period, but would be fully offset by new taxes and revenues and would actually reduce the deficit by $131 billion over the same period. (complete summary can be found here: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/show )

The bill was passes amid intense national debate as to the legitimacy of the need for such a bill as well as how the cost for a national healthcare system could be supported. In a country where freedom of choice is one of the founding tenants, the requirement by the government that all citizens be covered by a national healthcare system sounds counter intuitive.

As the congressional summary indicates, there were some 31 million American citizens who did not have medical coverage. The contention was that while some percentage of this population voluntarily chose to not have medical coverage and were able to easily afford it, these were by a vast margin a minority of the population. Most of this group were lower income or unemployed and either unable to afford, or unable to procure medical insurance. The actual break down was debated vigorously on both sides, with proponents claiming it was as much as 95% of the 31 million who could not afford it, while the opposition to the bill claiming that it was only approximate 50% of the 31million who could not afford or have the means to receive medical benefits.

The biggest glaring counterpoint to the whole argument is as to whether it is appropriate to change the entire healthcare industry of the United States for 11% of its population. A rather cold questions to be sure, but the United States has always been a country of the majority, i.e.; The best for the many, not the best for the few. This tact however was never discussed on the larger debate since it would probably be political suicide for whomev