With the much-ballyhooed bipartisan health care summit only two days away, it might be worthwhile to explore the issue in depth and attempt to add some historical context. Obviously, the illustration that I chose to feature is specifically targeting Social Security, not health care reform. However, Otto von Bismarck and the German model of a comprehensive social welfare network is generally understood to be the inspiration for the American programs that emerged in the 1930's. Those programs were, respectively, Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. Conspicuously absent was the 3rd leg of the trinity: National Health Insurance.Without question. the Social Security Administration fully recognizes von Bismarck's contribution to it's existence, although someone saw fit to add a disclaimer to the archival document on their website. Perhaps they're afraid that Glen Beck might stumble across it and launch into an incoherent rant. Regardless of what the motivations might be, it is disheartening that a government agency feels obligated to distance itself from it's own past. On it's own website no less.
The NYT's has a timeline on it's website that does an excellent job of mapping the century-long struggle to establish some form of universal health coverage for Americans. The first mention on the timeline is of former president Theodore Roosevelt, and his support for health insurance, when he ran in 1912 as a 3rd party candidate. And, Roosevelt didn't hesitate to point to Germany as the model that we should be emulating with regard to programs such as old-age insurance and health insurance. TR also had some very progressive ideas about woman's suffrage (he was in favor of it) and safer working conditions.
Interestingly enough, there is a school of thought, more libertarian then conservative, that believes that the welfare state and the so-called warfare state are really two sides of the same coin. Exploring that further would be a significant departure from what I'm writing about now so it will have to wait for another time.
It is perhaps not surprising that the aforementioned Glen Beck is targeting the Progressive Movement as being at the root of all of the things that he finds wrong with American society and government. On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart dismantled Beck's "logic" in typically entertaining fashion. I'll embed the video of it below:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Rage Within the Machine - Progressivism | ||||
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