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The cornerstone of Harry Truman's 'Fair Deal' was to be universal health insurance, which failed to become law in the aftermath of World War II when the Republicans took back control of Congress following the 1946 midterm election. My question, is thus: is it plausible, that without a POD prior to April 12, 1945 (Truman taking the Oath of Office), that this element of the Fair Deal becomes law?

My thinking on the matter is that for national health insurance to become law, you have to fix some of the problems with the early Truman administration itself, which would be [A] messy demobilization and subsequent economic downturn and strikes, and a whole lot of them. To do this, I suppose you'd have to have the Truman administration pursue a more gradualist approach to demobilization in order to avoid the economic fallout that would inevitably result from a rushed demobilization. Do this, and you're less likely to have a lot of discontent from labor (which means the Democrats have strong footsoldiers for the 1946 midterms), and nothing aside from personality for the Republicans to really campaign on, plus or minus continuing price controls.

But even if the Democrats keep Congress, I still think it's going to take a lot of arm twisting to get anything done on the part of the Fair Deal. Southern Democrats were already opposed to the administration's initiatives at this point, and many were fearful that NHI would lead to federal action to desegregate hospitals. So if it does pass, Truman is going to have to either compromise quite a bit, or simply try and work with some of the more progressive Republicans to fill in the gaps for the missing Democratic votes.

And then, there's still the question of what happens if NHI is passed into law. Obviously, you have no debate over Medicare and Medicaid in the Sixties (What then, does Johnson or whoever is butterflied into office put his energy into instead?), and no debate over expanding coverage in the 1990s or even now. How does the American political scene reshuffle itself?
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