By HAYLEY SKENE
EL NUEVO SOL

1900s:

American Medical Association becomes a prominent national organization at the state and local level.

1910s:

Hospitals recognize and use modern scientific developments, antiseptics, pain meds.
Progressives begin to propose concept of health insurance (gains support until 1917 when focus derailed by WWI.

Progressives begin to take issue with rising cost of medical care; doctor’s see rising salaires and social status.
General Motors becomes the first major industry since the railroad to provide health insurance for employers, signs with Metropolitan Life Insurance.

Focus on social welfare due to Great Depression, but more on social security than health insurance.
Blue Cross begins to offer private purchase health insurance.

WWII places wage restrictions on workers, so companies begin to offer healthcare plans to draw in workers. This begins the company healthcare revolution in the U.S.
President Roosevelt asks Congress to consider healthcare be a constitutional right.
President Truman proposes a national healthcare plan. It is shot down by politicians and the AMA, dubbed communistic.

health insurance remains primarily private, the federal government only allots about 4% of the GDP for healthcare for the very poor.
new medicines and vaccines are emerging in the marketplace.
The price of hospital care doubles.

Over 700 health insurance companies now exist.
Doctors are in demand, the federal government increases spending on healthcare education and training.
President Johnson signs Medicaid and Medicare into law.

President Nixon renames group insurance provider Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO’s) and provides federal funding and endorsement for HMO’s. He proposes a federal healthcare plan which is rejected.
Inflation and federal spending on Medicaid programs, as well as costly new treatments available drive the cost of health care higher and higher.
President Carter proposes a national healthcare plan in ’79 which fails in Congress.

Corporations begin to take primary ownership of major healthcare organizations.
President Reagan changes Medicare to payment by diagnosis rather than by treatment, and private insurance plans follow this model.

Healthcare costs rise at a rate which doubles the inflation.
Clinton proposes the Health Security Act in ’93, a national insurance plan which again fails in Congress.
In the late 90’s, 16% of Americans have no health insurance.

The cost of healthcare is still on the rise.
Medicare is becoming apparently an unsustainable program.
Massachusetts becomes the first state to require all adults who can afford health insurance to purchase it.
In 2008, Hilary Clinton pushes healthcare overhaul as her primary platform in competing for Democratic party candidacy and loses to Barack Obama, who has a less aggressive approach to health care.
In 2009 President Obama vamps up his health care concerns, and proposes the Affordable Care Act
In 2010, Congress passes the first part of the ACA which requries companies to provide health insurance for full time workers, and for insurance companies to offer plans to those with pre-existing conditions.
In 2012, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is passed in Congress, which will require all U.S. Citizens have health insurance, and provide federal assistance for those who need it. The law provides a series of changes to the health care system to be rolled out over the next decade.

*Information provided by PBS

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