Since its passage in 2009, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the ACA or Obamacare, has been proposed for repeal more than 50 times. Despite the multitude of efforts to repeal the ACA, it remains the law. In fact, with a Quinnipiac poll finding that "56 percent" of Americans approve of maintaining the ACA, in contrast to the "17 percent" who support the American Health Act, Republicans' current replacement, some puzzling questions are beginning to arise. Ask (Quinnipiac), Why is there such a difference of opinion when it comes to government health programs and what sowed the seeds that led to this campaign against the ACA? And are these forces why the United States has never adopted a universal healthcare system like its Western democratic counterparts? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay This issue of universal health care, that is, access to health care for all citizens, generally at public expense, dates back to when most other countries implemented their national health plans around the 1940s. It was around this time in the 20th century that the universal health programs of Western democracies , like the NHS in the UK, began to take shape and capture the popular political imagination. With Truman becoming president in 1945 following FDR's death, the creation of an American welfare state never seemed more likely. Yet over the next few years, public interest in a universal health care system would decline significantly, and ultimately any bill to establish national health insurance would never make it out of committee, let alone to be voted on in both houses. This radical change is reflected in the actions of lobbying organizations and Republicans during this period. These groups used common cultural fears and the political power of money and social pressure to change the perception of a universal health care system in the American consciousness, ultimately dooming any major health care legislation from the start. This lobbying by medical organizations like the AMA paved the way for the capitalist stronghold and fear tactics that are still used today to deter health care legislation. As we briefly mentioned above, the history of universal health care in the United States was both originated and ultimately ended by the American people in the 1940s. President Truman, after being elected to the presidency due to FDR's death in 1945, was intensely committed to national health insurance, but he faced an uphill battle. In 1947, when Truman was only two years in office and facing the Republican-controlled 80th Congress, he fought to make health care legislation a viable law. To make his dream a reality, Truman “appointed Oscar Ewing to head the Federal Security Agency (the precursor to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare)” (Quadagno 2006, p. 29). Ewing's appointment as head of the FSA is where we begin to see the lobbying power of the American Medical Association and its opposition to national health insurance. The AMA has long opposed government action on health care, fearing the uncertainty it would bring to the highly successful medical profession, and the AMA at this time was no different. WADA's total disgust fornational health care was announced by Dr. Robins, a "Democratic National Committeeman from Arkansas and a senior AMA official" who "warned Ewing before his Senate confirmation that 'the AMA could oppose Ewing's nomination if he gave.” what the AMA considered “the wrong answer” in health insurance (Quadagno 2006, p. 29). When first asked about his opinion on national health insurance during this confirmation hearing, Ewing managed to appease the AMA and be confirmed by stating that he did not know enough about the subject to object. or for national health insurance. However, WADA wouldn't be happy with Ewing for long. Once Ewing was confirmed, Truman directed him to use "all resources within the Federal Security Agency for vigorous and united action to impress upon the public the need for a national health program" ( Quadagno 2006 , p.30). This mission led Ewing to create the "National Health Assembly" which he hoped would "guarantee" that he "[would] have the people of the country with [him]" and Truman in pursuing a policy supported by the government. However, this 1948 committee remained on the friendly side of the AMA in not focusing on national health insurance and instead sought to obtain a reading of Americans' access to health care in general. The committee's work ultimately resulted in Ewing writing The Nation. Health: A report to the president in September of that year that outlined not only the nation's health problems, but also what Ewing saw as the best solution. His report revealed that only “3%” of cases were staggering. The population had "something approaching comprehensive insurance protection" and that, in Ewing's view, national health insurance was the best solution to this problem. In his words, "the collective purchasing power of the population" thanks to such a system "would help build a more efficient organization to provide the best in prevention, diagnosis and treatment" and would resolve the misfortunes of individuals who had a “problem…paying for medical care.” And “would create a stable and assured financial basis for health services” (Quadagno 2006, p. 30). This decision put Ewing at odds not only with the AMA and the Republicans, but also with the AMA. with the National Health Assembly itself, which has not taken such a strong stance on government health care. With the United States having just emerged from a war with Nazi Germany, tensions boiling with communist Russia, and the British Labor Party having just installed the National Health Service, Republicans and the AMA have responded to the threat of a national health care program with the tools of fear. and tax concessions. The main concern at the time was the newly emerging threat of fascist socialist governments, or worse, the threat of communist intrusion into the United States. Armed with this knowledge, Republicans fought back by depicting a bleak, socialist-heavy future in the United States with universal healthcare. They stated that "it would only be a matter of time before Washington also gets involved in the area of ​​education", or until constitutionally protected areas such as freedom of "religion" or even “the press, [and] the radio” up to “freedom”. himself “would be in a total eclipse”. Some went even further to suggest that national health insurance was “an insidious communist plot” that planned to use federal funds to prop up Moscow. To make matters even darker, this anti-American and red alarmist fervorappeared just as Truman was seeking re-election. Instead of moving away from Ewing's health policy proposals, "Truman responded by focusing even more attention on a national health care bill in the 1948 election" and, contrary to Ewing's expectations, time, he won. a second term with a Democratic-controlled Congress (Quadagno 2006, p. 31-32) With the Democrats firmly in power and President Truman still popular, "the AMA thought Armageddon had arrived" and withdrew all powers. The AMA would not only continue the Republican campaign against the threat of communism in America, but it would strike at the very heart of American life itself, the local town doctor. The AMA “charged its members $25 more each to resist national health insurance” through what they called a “National Education Campaign.” The AMA used these funds to hire Whitaker and Baxter, a public relations firm that had successfully helped "the California Medical Association...kill" a similar "health insurance bill" at the the State to direct it.their national campaign (Quadagno 2006, p. 34). During this project alone, the AMA "spent $1.5 million on lobbying efforts" and while $1.5 million may not seem so rich compared to the "$240 million" spent by pharmaceutical companies “for lobbying purposes” in 2015, this AMA campaign was, at the time, “the most expensive lobbying effort in American history” (Doctors; Chon). With a palpable bag of money at their feet, the experienced duo of "Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter...applied the tactics they had perfected in California" to rapid effect, wasting no time in producing literature from “posters [and] brochures”. to “cartoons and materials for “state medical agencies.” All these efforts were aimed at “keeping public opinion hostile to national health insurance.” In Whitaker's words, to take control of a situation, "you have to give it a bad name and have a devil", but with "Truman...too popular" to target, "Ewing [was] the devil Perfect ". and there was no greater defamation of Ewing's plan than to label "national health insurance 'socialized medicine'" (Quadagno 2006, p. 35). This image would endure, and with "anti-communist sentiment" continuing to grow during the early stages of the Korean War, there was no better poison pill for a bill than to associate it with anything or, even close to the socialist and communist policies of America. The AMA campaign succeeded in introducing this new image of national health insurance as socialized medicine into the American mind through pressure on AMA members at the grassroots level. The "AMA National Headquarters" even went so far as to get "every county" to launch a "fierce campaign" against socialized medicine by encouraging doctors to spread this propaganda message by writing letters, and even asking for doctors to “approach local newspapers to” ensure they were getting “the real facts.” '”. Additionally, doctors' offices were flooded with "copies of the pamphlet The Voluntary Way is the American Way" as well as "reception hall...posters with the caption "The Doctor: Keep Politics Out gap ". Any doctor who did it. I didn't play the "I risked being kicked out of membership...[and] I risked losing appointments and referrals" game, which meant that risking your life for national health insurance meant risking your business and your career as well. With all this pressure coming from below,even Ewing “admitted…[that] his bill was getting nowhere with Congress.” " For all the fervor Truman might have mustered on the campaign trail, Ewing now found he was "talking to a congressman" or other official who used to be for national health insurance, and suddenly they told him “you have no idea what’s going on politically. the influence a doctor has in his local community, and I don't want them to get excited against me” (Quadagno 2006, p. 35;38). The power of local doctors over patients was the final nail in the coffin, and with the very concept of national health care rebranded, it seemed that the AMA's fog of misinformation had won the day. This sea change in public perception was so palpable that when Truman first became president “in 1945, 75 percent of Americans supported national health insurance”; but “in 1949, only 21 percent favored” the same plan. This drop of more than 50 points shows just how much power and influence exists within a well-funded lobbying campaign, and Truman's response to this would be a sentiment about the nature of lobbying that seems relevant even today today. Truman, after seeing his defeat, accused "the American Medical Association" of "twisting and misrepresenting" his national insurance plan to the point that it became vital for politicians to "go and tell the people exactly what" . the government was trying to implement. In a government where money can speak so loudly that it can change the meaning of what it means to be a politician, as the AMA did for Truman and his campaign for national health insurance, there is then an apparent imbalance of powers at play within our legislative system. To quote a congressman and supporter of national health insurance at the time, Representative John Dingell, the AMA had pulled off "one of the coldest lobbying operations in American history" and this precedent that What it had created, and the success that came from it, set a very dangerous standard that led to our increasing activity and lobbying for a favorable future (Quadagno 2006, p. 38-40). Although the AMA might have been the first major campaign against government action on health care, they were not the last. In fact, due to corporations' awareness of the power to lobby Congress, as well as the reuse of fear tactics and misinformation that the AMA perfected in the 1940s, health care laws health policies such as the ACA are more than ever opposed by U.S. businesses. medical field. This opposition to health care not only affects the voters who vote for our legislators, but also harms the legislators themselves. While the industry now spends "approximately $2.6 billion annually in reported lobbying expenditures" and the medical health services sector is responsible for "$245,812,399" of dollars spent on lobbying alone 2016, the amount of money spent in hopes of influencing lawmakers "now regularly exceeds the total amount." House and Senate Budget” with no signs of slowing down (Drutman; “Pharmaceuticals/Health Products,” Open Secrets). That money was a particularly persuasive force in changing perceptions of former President Obama's health care bill, the Affordable Care Act. Not only does opinion on the law change dramatically depending on one's partisan affiliation, with "80% of Republicans strongly disapproving" of the bill, but even its name seems to be a point of confusion (All Things). In a poll conducted by Morning.