Is Universal Health Care an Impossible Fantasy?
It’s Difficult to Imagine a Single-Payer System That’s Both Politically and Practically Viable in America
For more than a century, America has argued about how to share the costs of health care. Drawing from new government-sponsored insurance programs in Germany and England, Progressive reformers made the America’s first serious push for compulsory national health insurance in 1915, on the grounds that it was the responsibility of an enlightened society: Illness was a major driver of poverty, so spreading the cost of sickness would benefit everyone by diminishing disease and dependency, right?
Not everyone agreed, of course. Government-sponsored health insurance would encourage freeloading, or at least result …
