Teddy and Harry

Health care reform is, of course, a strong first step in achieving the lifelong goal of late Senator Theodore M. Kennedy.

But Teddy was just taking the hand-off from the original advocate for Universal Health Care: President Harry S Truman.

As Missouri's own Blue Girl explains:

Harry S Truman died in 1972, so he will not be there today when the President signs the landmark legislation that passed the House on Sunday, but I hope that Harry gets his props at the signing ceremony.

That is because Harry Truman was the first President to propose universal coverage for all Americans and he did so nearly 65 years ago, in November 1945, arguing in a message to Congress that the federal government had a vested interest in the health of the citizenry, especially America's children."The health of American children, like their education, should be recognized as a definite public responsibility," Truman said.

Truman's plan went so far as to call for a national health insurance policy that Americans could buy into with a monthly premium and in exchange, have their care covered.

For this, Truman was pilloried and vilified. The AMA denounced his plan as "socialized medicine" and accused the President and his White House of toeing "the Moscow party line" - a highly inflammatory charge at the dawn of the cold war.

Truman's plan put universal coverage for Americans into the Democratic platform, and it has remained ever since, yet it was so despised by the medical establishment that it would be nearly twenty years before significant healthcare legislation would be proposed and passed.

Read the whole thing - it's wonderful.