In 1948, Harry Truman pushed for a national nonprofit health insurance program in his successful, come-from-behind presidential campaign. When Trumans plan was denounced as socialized medicine and un-American by the powerful American Medical Association, Give Em Hell Harrystood his ground,defending his proposal as simple Christianity.

In 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson secured passage of Medicare (and Medicaid), he traveled to Missouri to formally sign it into lawin Trumans presence declaring that the real daddy of Medicare was Truman. Medicare was federal health insurance for those 65 and older, but proponents hoped it was step one on the way to Medicare for all.

In the 1970s, it remained the Democratic Partys official position to support a federally-provided health insurance program for all (single payer) and its strongest advocate was the chair of the Senate Health subcommittee, Ted Kennedy. Supported by unions and seniors,Kennedy introduceda Medicare for all proposal in 1971: the Health Security Act. Worried about the plans popularity, President Nixon countered with a supposed reform that would preserve for-profit, private insurance: the Health Insurance Partnership Act. Kennedy declared, Its really a partnership between the administration and insurance companies. Its not a partnership between patients and doctors of this nation.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter promised a national health insurance plan in his victorious campaign for the presidency. Kennedy later called it a missing promise and their discord over healthcare continued through Kennedys failed challenge of Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.

As harsh neoliberal capitalism dawned in the Reagan 80s there was a sea change in the country and within the Democratic Party. Democratic leaders calling themselves New Democrats scarcely even pretended to resist greedy corporate interests. Those interests were invited into the party and into policy formulation.

Enter Bill Clinton.

By the 1990s, as day-to-day healthcare decision-making shifted from patients and their doctors to insurers and for-profit corporations,many physicianshad joined the call for all Americans to get their insurance from a single federal plan.

But none of these physicians were invited to the table as the Clinton administration developed its healthcare reform policy under the leadership of first lady Hillary Clinton. The policy was largely created by corporate healthcare lobbyists and lawyers known as theJackson Hole Study Group. The February 28, 1993New York Timeshad a photo of the group beneath this headline: Hillary Clintons Potent Brain Trust On Health Reform.

In 1993, aMother Joneswriter accurately described the impossible task Hillary Clinton had been handed by the White House:Build a better, leaner, cheaper mousetrap (healthcare system) but include a player piano (private insurance industry) in the middle of your contraption.

The goal of the Jackson Hole group was to devise a reform that kept the healthcare system in the hands of for-profit corporations. The plan that was ultimately developed called Managed Competition was so bureaucratic and complicated that the Clintons 1,342 page bill never got off the ground.

At the time, Norman Solomon and I were the only nationally-syndicated columnists critically examining the corporate greed and elite policy-making that was dooming healthcare reform. In onecolumn, we wrote:The imprint of the insurance industry is all over the managed competition idea. The Jackson Hole study group that originated the scheme is made up of big insurance companies like Prudential, Metropolitan Life, Aetna and Cigna, plus hospital and pharmaceutical interests.

Wecitedan article in which Jackson Hole leaders bluntly argued that managed competition is the only way to avert a government takeover of health care financing and the elimination of a multiple-payer private insurance industry.

Wecomplainedthat the Clinton administration and mainstream media were sidelining a nonprofit single-payer insurance bill endorsed by 95 members of Congress plus groups like Consumers Union and Public Citizen. At the same time the Clinton bill went nowhere, the White House made sure that real reform a streamlined plan not devised by Aetna, Cigna or Big Pharma never got voted on.

What was true in 1993 is true today: Health insurance companies do not heal anyone. All theycontribute to healthcareis excess bureaucracy for medical professionals, devious advertising, sales commissions plus exorbitant profits ($10 billion in one quarter last yearfor the Big 8 insurers) and lavish executive salaries. Compensation for healthcare CEOsaveraged $18 million in 2018.

Single payer doesnt justcut costsby eliminating the waste caused by a multiplicity of for-profit insurers but also because the purchasing power of a federal plan can rein in pharmaceutical and other exploding costs.

Jump forward from the Clinton to the Obama years, and we saw a similar dynamic from Democratic leaders. Powerful healthcare lobbyists made sure that cost-effective Medicare for All would not even be considered, while these same lobbyists wereat the tablehelping todevisereform. Who was at the table explains why giant insurance and pharma companies have been so enriched in the last decade.

Dont get me wrong: Its a good thing that people with pre-existing conditions could get coverage under Obamacare (although too expensive) and that Medicaid was expanded (in the states where the GOP didnt block it).Itsnota good thing that roughly 30 million people were left without health insurance BEFORE the jobless crisis caused by Covid-19, and that millions more were under-insured. And not a good thing that healthcare costs were hardly contained.

History teaches a clear lesson: The fact that our nation is the only advanced industrial country without universal healthcare cannot be blamed on Republican obstruction alone. It was also caused by Democratic leaders whove spent decades catering to corporate interests (while collecting their campaign donations) and refusing to fight for universal coverage.

This history of Democratic obstruction and vacillation is whyhundreds of elected delegatesto next months Democratic convention haveput their foot down. Theyve signed apetitionpledging to vote down the party platform if it does not include a plank supporting universal, single-payer Medicare for All. The petitions initiator is Judith Whitmer, chair of the conventions Nevada delegation. She toldPolitico:This pandemic has shown us that our private health insurance system does not work for the American people. Millions of people have lost their jobs and their healthcare at the same time.

By demanding of the party leadership what Harry Truman called for 72 years ago, Whitmer and other Democratic activists are indeed giving em hell.

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Democratic Leaders Have Blocked Real Healthcare Reform for Decades. Time to Give 'Em Hell. - CounterPunch