The primary source for these summaries is a seminar recorded on DVD and recently published by Howard Baumgarten, LPC, a therapist and health care consultant residing in the Denver area. Mr. Baumgarten will be giving the seminar in the Denver area in October, 2014, and his website is SmartPracticeCentral.com. Although the seminar is directed primarily to mental health professionals, the information is broad enough to appeal to various professionals and interested consumers alike.
In the next post, we will briefly review some legislation beginning in the 1970s that led up to Obamacare. Some of it, such as the establishment of HMOs by the Nixon administration, had bipartisan support. On the whole, however, social programs designed to help the poor and the otherwise disadvantaged have been supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.
The Republican party opposed and defeated national health care legislation beginning with a bill introduced by the Truman administration back in the 1940s. The Republicans also opposed Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as national health care bills offered by the Clinton administration in the 1990s. Thus the passage of Obamacare was a significant defeat for them and one they still oppose quite strongly.