245), prompted the government to accept some responsibility for the future security of the aged, the handicapped and the unemployed as it relates to healthcare needs. In 1939, the Roosevelt Administration also introduced the Wagner National Health Act which "gave general support for a national health program to be funded by federal grants to states and administered by states and localities" ("A Brief History," 2009, Internet); however, due to a rapid decline in progressivism and the costs linked to World War I, this act failed to create a national healthcare agenda.

In 1943, the federal government finally came to acknowledge that healthcare was a major national priority which soon led to the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill which called for "compulsory national health insurance and a payroll tax" to help cover the expenses. One year later saw the creation of the Committee for the Nation's Health, group represented by "organized labor, progressive farmers and liberal physicians" ("A Brief History," 2009, Internet). By the time that Harry Truman became President after the death of FDR in 1945, healthcare concerns in the U.S. took on new initiatives with Truman's "Fair Deal, a comprehensive program of social legislation which expanded Social Security" (Schmidt, 2001, p. 267) and helped to launch a nationwide campaign for a healthcare system in the U.S. However, conservative Republicans saw this as socialized medicine, and because of anti-Communist sentiments in the late 1040's via the Cold War, "national health insurance became vanishingly improbable" ("A Brief History," 2009, Internet).

The issue of healthcare...

Some years later, Medicaid was added to this as a way of supplementing Medicare. After the Johnson Administration, a number of concerned senators and representatives began an all-out assault on creating some type of nationalized healthcare program which continued through all future administrations up until the present day. Of course, during the Presidency of Bill Clinton, efforts to create a national healthcare program began and then stalled, due to overwhelming dissent and the lack of adequate support from Congress. But today, in the Obama Administration, the issue of national healthcare has taken on a new life and will hopefully evolve into a type of socialized program in which all Americans will be covered for their health-related needs.
REFERENCES

"A Brief History: Universal Healthcare Efforts in the U.S." (2009). PNHP. Internet.

Accessed June 15, 2009 from http://www.pnhp.org/facts/a_brief_history_universal_health_care_efforts_in_the_us.php.

Anderson, William H. (2006). The U.S. Healthcare Dilemma: Mirrors and Chains.

New York: Auburn House.

Couchman, Andrew. (2001). Insurance in Healthcare. New York: LLP Professional

Publishing Company.

McKenzie, Kenneth and Eilish McAuliffe. (2005). The Politics of Healthcare. New York:

Blackwell Publishing.

Schmidt, Peggy J. (2001). Healthcare: A Short History. New York:…