The Elusive Goal of Universal Health Care in the U.S.: Organized Labor and the Institutional Straightjacket of the Private Welfare State
1999 ◽
Vol 11
(4)
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pp. 367-398
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Keyword(s):
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, national health insurance returned briefly to the political limelight with renewed calls for a single-payer health-care system that would eliminate any significant role for commercial insurers in the provision of health care. Organized labor, however, which had been a longtime proponent of national health insurance, did not warmly embrace the single-payer solution. Instead, much of the national leadership of organized labor supported some kind of employer-mandate solution that would require employers to pay a portion of their employees' health insurance premiums, thus leaving the private welfare state of job-based medical benefits largely intact.