The History of Health Care

Reading through chapter 5 on the surprising history of health care reform in the United States, I was surprised to learn that America had a compulsory health coverage act in 1790 and did not have any reforms for another 120 years. This was surprising as I would have thought that people from the healthcare sector or the labor union would have taken an initiative to better their healthcare system. This is mainly because the first bill had paved the way for them, and they could have improved the healthcare coverage plans to create a culture of healthcare reform in the country. I was also shocked to learn that the American Federation of Labor was opposed to the AMA and the AALL's healthcare proposals. This was surprising because the leader of the American Federation of labor is supposed to look out for the employees' best interests. Unfortunately, Samuel Gompers, the president of the foundation at that time, wanted to maintain the Union's power over employees to ensure their members looked to them for benefits; thus, he opposed the proposal. If this proposal had been given enough support, it would have been one of the important healthcare reforms that occurred in the progressive era. More importantly, it would have spearheaded more healthcare reforms in the country. 

Learning about the history of health care reform has changed my perspectives regarding current efforts. Through the various proposals that were made over the last century, I have learned of the challenges that healthcare reform undergoes. I have also learned that different bodies that are interested in healthcare reforms often have different agendas that they try to meet with the various reforms that they introduce in the form of proposals. This influences my perspectives on current reform efforts as now I know that healthcare is dynamic and continually reinventing itself. This helps me understand why there are various reform efforts in the sector with the never-ending proposals and bills that are put forward for healthcare legislation reform. I now know that the current reform efforts face significant challenges within the sector, thus explaining why most of the proposals do not get ratified into bills.