Health Care Reform Essay -- essays research papers

From FDRs New Deal to Lyndon Johnsons Great Society, the United States government has attempted to change extensive social policies. In the early eighties, when recession and inflation were at a high, Ronald Reagan took office and pronounced that the federal government needed to take a lesser role in the lives of the American people. As Theda Skocpol comments in her book Boomerang Clintons Health trade protection Effort and the Turn Against Government in U.S. Politics, the Reagan administration instilled a dislike of centralized government in the American people. This was a major reason, according to Skocpol, why the Clinton Administration failed to nationalize Health Security. It was this fear of centralized government and Clintons failure to reform Health Care that makes a more centralized social policy unlikely in the near future.There has been a necessity in the twentieth century (due in part to the Great Depression and World War II) for big government. The economy behind Fr anklin Roosevelts New Deal called for the involvement of the federal government to create a highly bureaucratic social policy. The combination of Roosevelts political assertiveness and societys willingness to allow such centralization that made big government possible. The laissez-faire mentality of the twenties was seen as the cause of the depression. The federal government and the ensuing reforms were seen as a way of insuring economic security. In the sixti...