The Times they aren't a changing: Still uninsured after all these years

Universal health coverage may be one of the big issues of the 2008 election, but people have been whining and wheezing about their lack of insurance for more than 90 years.

First, from today’s Times:

Albany: Proposal for Universal Health Insurance

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A state lawmaker proposed yesterday that New York create a $59 billion health insurance program that would cover everyone in the state and would probably be paid for through a tax increase. The plan, from Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried, would generally replace the private health plans that now provide coverage to many people through their jobs. Assemblyman Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat who is chairman of the Health Committee, said the program would have to be paid for by new taxes, but he said that state residents would pay less than they now pay in premiums and deductibles. Critics said there was little evidence that the state could afford the program, or that it could do better than the current system.

In 1916, state legislators proposed a similar idea.

January 30, 1916
HEALTH INSURANCE FOR NEW YORK’S WORKERS

New York State is facing one of the most radical proposals in the interests of the wage earner ever made in this country—a compulsory health insurance bill. The measure was introduced in the Legislature on Jan. 24 by Senator Ogden L. Mills.

Although its promoters, members of the Social Insurance Committee of the American Association for Labor Legislation, have been working on the project for more than three years and have distributed over 13,000 copies of the tentative bill, the plan comes as a surprise to many people, and a wave of inquiry is sweeping through associations of employers…

“Paternalism,” “socialism,” are slogans of the foes of this measure, which is bound to arouse discussion in every direction. It means in general terms an effort to introduce into the United States the compulsory health insurance of Great Britain or the sickness insurance of Germany, so that every manual worker and every wage earner whose income does not exceed $100 a month will, when he becomes ill, have the services of a physician, attendance, and even medicine and surgical appliances, and that for at least half a year, if his disability continues, he will receive a weekly allowance for the support of himself and his family. Death and funeral benefits are included.

Naturally this was deemed “un-American,” and the bill was scorned and later vastly watered down by doctors, employers, and insurers:

March 20, 1919
UNITE IN ATTACK ON HEALTH INSURANCE

Merchants, Manufacturers, Physicians, and Fraternal Societies argue at Albany hearing

ALBANY, March 19.—Compulsory health insurance as proposed in the Davenport-Donohue bill was attacked as un-American, unsound, and unconstitutional by its opponents at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon. Manufacturers, merchants, physicians, and representatives of fraternal organizations appeared in opposition, while representatives of labor argued for it.