The Political History of National Health Care 101 [and Obama the Chump]

UPDATE II: All hail Republi-CON truthiness! From The New York Times, Opposition to Health Law Is Steeped in Tradition:

The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism,” the National Association of Manufacturers charged in 1938.

After Brown v. Board of Education outlawed school segregation in 1954, 101 members of Congress signed a statement calling the ruling an instance of “naked judicial power” that would sow “chaos and confusion” and diminish American greatness. A decade later, The Wall Street Journal editorial board described civil rights marchers as “asking for trouble” and civil rights laws as being on “the outer edge of constitutionality, if not more.”

This year’s health care overhaul has now joined the list.

The Republi-con war on the middle class continues!


UPDATE: Add to the political history of national health care, Obama finally realizing he was chumped by the Republi-con. Read the Washington Post, Obama: GOP successfully outplayed us on health reform.

"So over the last 80 years or so, Democrats have responded to Republican opposition by moving to the right, and Republicans have responded by moving even further to the right. In other words, Democrats have been willing to adopt Republican ideas if doing so meant covering everybody (or nearly everybody), while Republicans were willing to abandon Republican ideas if sticking by them meant compromising with the Democrats. But because Democrats were insistent on getting something that would help the uninsured, they've ended up looking like the partisans, as they keep pushing bills Republicans refuse to sign onto."

Read the Washington Post, Why bipartisan health-care reform has proven impossible.