Other, general social insurance

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, let us recall the contributions to our nation’s vibrant social insurance infrastructure by those women who are no longer with us, but whose legacies remain strong.

Among these often unsung heroines are:

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”
​- Thomas Jefferson 

With much fanfare, the Oxford Dictionaries announced that the new word for 2016 was “post-truth.” The Dictionary defines “post-truth” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

What does the outcome of last Tuesday’s election mean for the future of social insurance in the United States?

Although the core elements of our nation’s social insurance structure – Social Security, Medicare, Workers’ Compensation, and Unemployment Insurance – were given little attention during the debates, a new Administration and Congress will no doubt take a hard look at the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities confronting these essential programs. Vital protections provided by other key programs within the scope of the National Academy of Social Insurance – such as Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and especially the Affordable Care Act – are facing serious challenges.

Welcome to Covered: A Week-by-Week Look at the 1965 Politics that Created Medicare and Medicaid. Bob Rosenblatt, a Senior Fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance, former Los Angeles Times Washington correspondent, and editor of the website HelpWithAging will blog on the maneuvers that led to the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid on July 30th, 1965 the first major expansion of U.S. social insurance to health care.

Johnson Fearful About Medicare Price Tag

March 13, 1965

By Bob Rosenblatt, Special Correspondent