The Early Years: The Road to Employer-Based Coverage, Medicare, and Medicaid

CHAPTER 2 EXAMINES A CRUCIAL PERIOD IN THE DEVELOPMENT of health care policy in the U.S. from the end of the Civil War through World War II to the Great Society (1865-1965). Unlike other Western nations, which established systems of universal health care, the United States rejected national health insurance. Instead, it pursued a path of voluntary employment-based insurance. Although efforts to achieve a national health care system were defeated, two significant health insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, were enacted.