Healthcare

             Throughout our nations recent history our government has often attempted to introduce us to several different centralized social policies such as FDR's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. During the mid-1990s both the "Health Security" effort and the Welfare Reform Bill were introduced to the American public. Both initiatives and their outcome had a profound effect on our societies troubled social policies. The United States spends more money on health care per individual than any other nation in the world, "14% of its GNP"(Stelzer, 19) in 1991, yet "...somewhere between 37 million and 39 million Americans are now widely said to be without coverage" (Stelzer, 19). The United States is also the wealthiest Western nation yet; "There were 38.1 million people in the United States whose family income was below the poverty line, representing 14% of the population"(Blank, 15). There seemed to be a general consensus that something needed to be done about the poor state of our health care system, and welfare system in America, hence giving rise to each iniative in the mid 1990's.
             With regards to the Health care system, in order to attempt to correct the failures of the system, the problems that led to the deterioration of it had to be addressed. In the early eighties, when recession and inflation were at a high, Ronald Reagan took office and made it clear to everyone he felt the federal government needed to take a lesser role in the lives of the American people. The Reagan administration worked to cut taxes and spending on what was considered wasteful government programs. Instead what ended up occurring was the republicans drained the existing programs of any type of fiscal support in order to cut the federal budget. Reagan's plans were not carefully thought through and its repercussions would be felt long into the Clinton administration.
             When first entering the White H...

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Healthcare. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:42, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/12073.html