Social Security Act of 1935
In 1933, President Roosevelt called upon Isidore Falk, a member of the Committee on the Cost of Medical Care, to draft provisions to Social Security legislation to include publicly funded health care programs.
"In the individual family, sickness may bring costs which will be small and easily taken care of, or it may bring loss of wages or medical costs which will use up savings or even make the family dependent upon public or private charity. If the wage earner and his family are to be protected against loss of income caused by sickness and against the costs of medical services, they must be protected by insurance." |
"Health needs were studied by the Committee on Economic Security which I appointed in 1934 and certain basic steps were taken by the Congress in the Social Security Act. It was recognized at that time that a comprehensive health program was required as an essential link in our national defenses against individual and social insecurity. Further study, however, seemed necessary at that time to determine ways and means of providing this protection most effectively." |
Due to opposition from the AMA, FDR’s Committee on Economic Security feared that including health insurance in the Social Security Bill of 1935 would prevent the passage of the bill. The bill was passed with the exclusion of health insurance.
"We are not prepared at this time to make recommendations for a system of health insurance....Elsewhere in our report we state principles on which our study of health insurance is proceeding, which indicate clearly that we contemplate no action that will not be quite as much in the interests of the members of the professions concerned as of the families with low incomes."
-The Report to the President of the Committee on Economic Security
January 1935
"Whether we come to this form of insurance soon or later on, I am confident that we can devise a system which will enhance and not hinder the remarkable progress which has been made and is being made in practice of the professions of medicine and surgery in the United States." |
FDR on the signing of the Social Security Act, 1935
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