"By 1943 the tide of battle had turned in favor of the Allies, and postwar reconstruction problems began to receive increasing attention. President Roosevelt, in his state of the Union message that year, for the first time called for a social insurance system that would extend "from the cradle to the grave." His plea followed closely the publication by the British of the famed "Beveridge Report." This report, advocating a comprehensive social welfare system for postwar Britain, caused considerable excitement in the United Skates and spurred the Roosevelt administration to release a similar high-level report by the National Resources Planning Board. Shortly afterward, Sir
William Beveridge, chairman of the commission that had drafted the British report, came to the United States for a lecture tour, and his tour stimulated further public discussion of health insurance and other social security issues.
President Roosevelt evidently felt the time was not yet appropriate for a Presidential endorsement, but he was amenable to Senator Wagner's introducing a bill for broad improvements and additions to the Social Security Act, including health insurance measures. Accordingly, the Social Security Board drafted a bill which was introduced on June 3,1943, by Senator Wagner and Senator James Murray of Montana (S. 1161)and Representative John Dingell of Michigan (H.R. 2861) (2) As its drafters and sponsors had expected, the Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill signaled the beginning of the political debate that would come to a climax in the postwar years.
In the ensuing months, the battle lines began to form. Organized labor, the National Farmers Union, and several other organizations declared their support; the AMA-linked "National Physicians' Committee for the Extension of Medical Service" began organizing against it. (The AMA opened a Washington office in September 1944 "to keep in close contact with political developments on the national scene.") The physicians were joined by a revitalized Insurance Economics Society of America (one of the organizations that had been in the forefront of the opposition to Government health insurance in the early 1900's), the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association, and other groups.
Without official Presidential support (and pressure), and with the war still far from being won, the first Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill died in committee. There were times during the war years when the President indicated interest in advancing health proposals. But each time he postponed a commitment. Then, during the election campaign of 1944, he began to move toward an endorsement. He urged an "Economic Bill of Rights" for the American people, including "the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health" and "the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment." Following his reelection (and with the end of the war in sight), Mr. Roosevelt began setting the stage for personal sponsorship of the proposal. In his budget message of January 1945, he called for an "extended social security, including medical care." And in his 1945 state of the Union message, he promised : "I shall communicate further with the Congress on these subjects at a later date."
Presumably, Mr. Roosevelt intended to press ahead with the health insurance issue as soon as the war was over; a special Presidential message on health matters had been drafted by the Social Security Board several months earlier and merely awaited the President's pleasure. But the President would never deliver the message; he died in April 1945.
His successor's views on health insurance were not known in advance, but it soon became apparent that the new President, Harry S. Truman, would support the proposal enthusiastically and make it a key item in what he later labeled the "Fair Deal" program. On November 19, 1945, after the Japanese surrender, Mr. Truman sent a revised health message to Congress along with a re-drafted Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill. Thus, for the first time, the Congress had before it an official administration proposal for a general program of Government health insurance (sponsors called it National Health Insurance).
Years later, President Truman wrote: "I have had some bitter disappointments as President, but the one that has troubled me most, in a personal way, has been the failure to defeat the organized opposition to a National compulsory health insurance program. But this opposition has only delayed and cannot stop the adoption of an indispensable Federal health insurance plan."
It matters because I’m trying to sort out your words versus their words to see what you’re saying versus what they’re saying.