No Vietnam + Medicare = National Health Care?

Is it possible hadn't there been a big expensive US involvement in Vietnam. That LBJs great society could have given National Healthcare? If that had happened how would America have looked today?
 
That would have been a good time to implement such a program, because the US was drafting new young physicians into the military. It would give them a "supply" for staffing, as the medical licensing procedure would phase in some sort of public service obligation.
 
Is it possible hadn't there been a big expensive US involvement in Vietnam. That LBJs great society could have given National Healthcare? If that had happened how would America have looked today?

Canada started its Medicare roughly in the mid-60's (each province opened at a different time). That country was unburdened by war. Yet, it has a smaller population and a much different political makeup than the US.

I don't think that single-payer American Medicare would have passed even if Vietnam were butterflied away. Maybe something like Obama is proposing might have passed, especially if there were no public option. The managed-care insurance models found in the US today were not around in the 60's, so it's hard to make a comparison between LBJ Medicare and the Obama plan.

There would be great opposition from fiscal Republicans over a universal single-payer, and I suspect there would be protests similar in tenor to the ones that are seen today over the current health-bill. Remember the Cold War and the "democracy vs. communism" dichotomy loomed large in the American consciousness (i.e. McCarthyism). Butterflying Vietnam away would not likely change this political dichotomy. UHC would appear 'socialist' (as Lazar below notes about public perception of Truman's UHC plan.)

Some Americans to this day consider the Great Society a high water mark of Democratic spending and statism, and consider that time in history a low mark for the American government. What we see today with Obama and his plan has antecedents in LBJ and the general ethos of American politics.
 
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Harry Truman had proposed national health insurance as part of his abortive "Fair Deal" agenda in 1949 (along with things like civil rights legislation and a national housing plan), but people rejected most of his ideas as being too socialistic.
 
Harry Truman had proposed national health insurance as part of his abortive "Fair Deal" agenda in 1949 (along with things like civil rights legislation and a national housing plan), but people rejected most of his ideas as being too socialistic.

By people, you mean the AMA and Southern Democrats, right? The public was supportive of a universal health care plan even at the time of FDR when he was talking Social Security. The AMA has always just had a better GOTV effort in convincing Congresspersons to vote down this sort of legislation.
 
Nixon proposed a national health care plan similar to the current plans in Congress. Perhaps "Only Nixon could go to China" would be "Only Nixon could get National Health Care passed."?

Looking a bit deeper, he also proposed national health insurance in 1947 while in Congress.
 
By people, you mean the AMA and Southern Democrats, right? The public was supportive of a universal health care plan even at the time of FDR when he was talking Social Security. The AMA has always just had a better GOTV effort in convincing Congresspersons to vote down this sort of legislation.
Yeah, that would be more accurate. The AMA opposed Medicare IIRC.
 
By people, you mean the AMA and Southern Democrats, right? The public was supportive of a universal health care plan even at the time of FDR when he was talking Social Security. The AMA has always just had a better GOTV effort in convincing Congresspersons to vote down this sort of legislation.

How can you say this, considering that modern polling didn't exist in the 40's?
 
Jaded_Tailman said:
How can you say this, considering that modern polling didn't exist in the 40's?
??
They did have polling, as early as the '30s at least, and fairly mature statistical knowledge. George Gallup was conducting polls at least from 1936...sure, they didn't have phone polling, but most people didn't have phones. Subject to the usual limitations, I can't see how they would have less accurate polling data than we do.
 
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