The advent of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 was meant (by the creators) to initiate a slow (5-7 years) but inevitable transition to a Universal Health Care system.
What has been going on for the past 61 years is a low level political civil war between people who will accept nothing less and people who don’t want it.
All of the battles have been won by the UHC faction (DRGs, EMTALA, HiTech, PPACA) and while all of those things have been meant to destroy what existed before 1965, the end of what’s left of pre-1965 medicine hasn’t been visible - until now.
Do you think our health care system will become like the systems in Canada and UK?
Title XIII of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act prompted the creation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which set aside money for creating a nationwide network of electronic health records and prompted the beginning of the Meaningful Use program. With the Meaningful Use program, healthcare providers were given incentives to use technology to improve healthcare.
the HITECH Act of 2009 increased penalties for HIPAA violations and strengthened criminal and civil enforcement of the HIPAA.