Universal Healthcare History

Last semester I had the opportunity in Social Problems class to explore the history of the rhetoric surrounding the fight for universal healthcare in America. I won't go into details about the history, but if you are interested the link above leads to the PNHP website which gives a pretty good brief account. More interesting to me was, with this topic so obviously relevant in the coming election, just how have the arguments changed? Also, why did the only candidate actually pushing for actual universal healthcare get marginalized. At the same time, a candidate like Clinton who is pushing the agenda of the organization who has historically been the biggest opposition to universal care, can get away with muddying the term by claiming her plan as "universal"? Polls show that Americans wanted Universal Care, according to a poll by ABC and the Washington Post %62 of Americans want Universal, single-payer, medicare modeled healthcare. This is not, however, what Hilary is proposing. Her plan is a system where everyone is required to buy health insurance. She claims she will make it affordable, but she never tells you what she considers affordable to be. Her plan is alarmingly similar to what is suggested by the American Medical Association. If you take the time to check out the history you would find that the AMA has been fighting against Universal Coverage for over 90 years and is the organization who pushed the propoganda associating it with communism, rhetoric which once held much more weight by Americans than it does today. It's not such a coincidence that the AMA has done some verbal manuevering now that most people are asking for such a system. In a statement posted on their website, it might seem that the AMA has changed their long historical tune. They seem to be for everyone having health insurance, but in reality if you dig through their forest of words, they are still just in favor of "consumer-driven" insurance, again a system which benefits insurance companies keeping profit more important than health. So close to the line of reason that Mrs. Clinton uses and so strange that her plan would look so much like theirs. Whose interest is she dedicated to? Big business or us? By the way, this is what the rest of the world looks like in terms of how countries care for their citizens...