Medicaid (noun): health coverage provided through a joint partnership of the federal and state governments to millions of Americans, including low-income individuals, pregnant women, children, elderly adults, and individuals with disabilities.
1937: President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not include national health insurance in the New Deal. The rhetoric of this time was similar to the 2008 election and subsequent passage of the Affordable Care Act , painting any potential government-financed health program as a socialized nightmare. Roosevelt responded to complaints from the American Medical Association (AMA) and put the issue to rest: “Attempts have been made in the past to put medicine into politics. Such attempts have failed and always will fail.”
1945: The AMA conducts the most expensive lobbying effort to date against President Truman’s plan for universal health care, calling such a program “un-American,” “socialized medicine,” and “followers of the Moscow party line.”
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