Before the statute, the feeling
This is not a hearing on insulin, and it is not a hearing on the hospital file. This is the older tape: presidents and a dying senator saying a sick person should not lose the savings, should not beg, should not have to tell a child there is a treatment they cannot afford. The cameras start in 1944. Teddy Roosevelt asked in 1912 — there is no film. Watch the faces. The drug voices and hospital voices pages are the prices. This is the century of the same sentence.
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1944 · Harry S. Truman 1965 · Lyndon B. Johnson 1965 · Richard Nixon 1974 · Ted Kennedy 1978 · Bill Clinton 1993 · Ted Kennedy 2008 · Barack Obama 2009
Medicare was the one time the country made the feeling into a hospital rate — for 65 and disabled. Coverage laws came later. The job-plan night is still 2–3×. The brand vial is still ~4×. They were crying about ruin. This site measures why the ruin is still legal.
Drug voices · Hospital voices · Patient voices · Evil · The 5% · What actually passed
1944 · White House · history
Franklin D. RooseveltState of the Union — a second Bill of Rights (Jan 11)
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights. Among these: the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment.
WantsThat a sick person is not a failed person. That medical care sits next to a job and a home as something a country owes its people — not a favor, not a shop.
On this siteHe named it in wartime. He did not live to write the statute. Truman tried. Johnson got 65. The job-plan night and the brand vial were not in that sentence. They still are not.
The 5% that still eats the pile · What the person actually meets
1965 · White House (former) · history
Harry S. TrumanTruman Library — Medicare signing, Independence, Mo.
These people are our prideful responsibility, and they are entitled to the best medical protection available. Not one of these, our citizens, should ever be abandoned to the indignity of charity. Charity is indignity when you have to have it. I am glad to have lived this long and to witness today the signing of the Medicare bill which puts this Nation right where it needs to be, to be right.
WantsThat an old person who has done the tour of duty does not have to beg. He asked for this in 1945. He is 81, on a cane, and he got to see it.
On this siteTwenty years between the ask and the pen. Medicare is the public rate for 65 and disabled. It is not the commercial night. The hospital still extracts 2–3× from the job plan. The feeling in this room is older than the 5%.
1965 · White House · history
Lyndon B. JohnsonLBJ Library film — Medicare signing with Truman (July 30)
No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts.
WantsThat a child does not go broke burying a parent in hospital bills. That dignity in later years is not a slogan. He flew to Independence so Truman could hold the first card.
On this siteThis is the most heartfelt hospital statute the country ever passed. It is still only the public book. The must-have emergency department bills the job plan a private multiple. Maryland is the one state that made one stay, one rate, whoever pays.
1974 · White House · history
Richard NixonComprehensive Health Insurance Plan
Every American participating in the program would be insured for catastrophic illnesses that can eat away savings and plunge individuals and families into hopeless debt for years. Let us act now to assure all Americans financial access to high quality medical care.
WantsThat money is not the door. Two of his brothers died of tuberculosis. He is a Republican saying the family should not be ruined. The plan on the table died in Watergate.
On this siteEven this White House said inability to pay should not decide. The employer-mandate shape showed up again in 1993 and 2010. Coverage is not the same as the price. The 5% is still the night and the brand.
1978 · Senate · history
Ted KennedyDemocratic midterm, Memphis — health care workshop
There probably has not been a family in this country that has been touched by sickness, illness and disease like my own family. We were able to get the very best in terms of health care, because we were able to afford it. It would have bankrupted any average family in this nation. Let us resolve that the state of a family’s health shall never depend on the size of a family’s wealth.
WantsHe had a son with cancer. He had a broken back. He could pay. He is saying out loud that the rest of the country cannot — and that this is the wound, not a spreadsheet.
On this siteThis is the confession the policy pages cannot make. The Kennedy ward is not the 5%. The 5% is the family that meets the same illness without the fortune. The night is still 2–3×. The vial is still ~4×.
1993 · White House · history
Bill ClintonJoint session — health care reform (Sept 22)
My mother is a nurse. I grew up around hospitals. They are what is right with this health care system. But we can no longer afford to ignore what is wrong. Millions of Americans are just a pink slip away from losing their health insurance, and one serious illness away from losing all their savings. On any given day, over 37 million Americans — most of them working people and their little children — have no health insurance at all.
WantsThat a furniture-store son does not have to drop his own parents because they got old. That a preexisting condition is not a life sentence. He is asking Congress to look at a sick child, not a bill.
On this siteHillarycare died. Preexisting-condition bans came later in the ACA. Coverage still is not a posted price. The pink-slip fear is insurance. This site is the invoice underneath — the 2–3× night, the 4× vial.
2008 · Senate · history
Ted KennedyDemocratic National Convention, Denver (Aug 25)
This is the cause of my life — new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — north, south, east, west, young, old — will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.
WantsHe has a brain tumor. He walked onto that stage anyway. Thirty years after Memphis, the same sentence. He will not live to vote on the law.
On this siteACA passed seven months after he died. It is a coverage statute. It is not a national hospital rate and it is not a national drug list. The cause of his life is still the feeling on this page. The prices are the other two tapes.
2009 · White House · history
Barack ObamaJoint session on health insurance reform — Kennedy’s letter (Sept 9)
What we face is above all a moral issue. At stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country. Ted Kennedy never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick. He was able to imagine what it must be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent: there is something that could make you better, but I just can’t afford it.
WantsNot a committee print. A parent who does not have to say that sentence. He is reading a dying friend’s letter to a joint session and asking them to feel it.
On this siteThe ACA is what fit. Insurance cannot drop you for getting sick. It still does not set the hospital night or bargain the brand as a country. The moral issue in this clip is the same one FDR named in 1944. The 5% is why the sentence is still true.
The hallway: Drug voices · Hospital voices · Patient voices · Evil · Political action · Problems / solutions · The 5% · Journey · Flagship · The plant