Nobody told the difficult, extraordinary story of health care reform better than John Dingell.
No member of Congress saw more history than John Dingell, the longest-serving United States Representative in history, who died Thursday at age 92.
On health care especially, something of an ancestral calling for the Michigan Congress member, he oversaw remarkable progress.
First elected in 1955, Dingell wielded the gavel in 1965 when Congress passed Medicare into law, guaranteeing health insurance as a right to every American citizen over age 65. He voted for Medicaid and later the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
He watched key health reform efforts, like those championed by the Clintons in the 1990s, fail — and lost his prized chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee shortly afterward. But his career closed with a victory: When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, Dingell sat at his side.
All told, Dingell played a role in the creation of three major government health care programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Taken together, those three programs now cover about 40 percent of the American population.
For the Michigan Congress member, national health insurance was a family matter: Every year, he would reintroduce a bill first proposed by his father during World War Il for a single-payer health care program.
Dingell traced that remarkable history in a string of tweets — his Twitter account was the frequent source of amusement among the Washington press corps — while Republicans debated in 2017 whether to repeal the most recent Democratic health care law.
In 1943, my father was one of the first people to introduce comprehensive health care reform in Congress, a single-payer system for all.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017
But his effort wasn't as successful in '43. The Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill to create a national health program ultimately died in committee.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017
He never would get to see universal health care become law. He passed in 55 and I decided to run to replace him, vowing to keep up his work.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017
In 1957--and every Congress thereafter--I'd reintroduce my father's bill & work to create a national program to take care of those in need.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017
I was a pup at the time, but I began working with my colleagues on Medicare legislation. Cecil King. Aime Forand. My dear friend John Moss. pic.twitter.com/Q033Fw2XGV
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
It took years to work through, but then-Speaker McCormack brought our bill to the floor in 65 and gave me the honor of gaveling its passage. pic.twitter.com/Zg1R2I86xu
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
It was an accomplishment but was not my end goal. I continued to reintroduce my father's bill every year. As pieces of it slowly became law.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
Over the years we'd create the National Institutes of Health, the Children's Health Insurance Program, & many other efforts to improve care.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
We took another shot in the 90s but again came up short. You know who knew damn well how complicated health care could be?@HillaryClinton.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
Nevertheless, we persisted. It was an honor to work with so many great champions of our nation in helping to craft the Affordable Care Act.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
Was Obamacare perfect? Hell no. The only perfect law was handed to Moses on stone tablets by God himself. Obamacare was an important start.
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
7 years ago this week, I sat with @POTUS44 & others as decades of our collective hard work became law. Or as @JoeBiden called it: a big deal pic.twitter.com/PbO1R4L4oF
— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017
But even Dingell never realized the full completion of the progressive health care reform project and the truly universal health care system he strived for over many decades in the Capitol.
For all his remarkable accomplishments, as Dingell was painfully aware, the dream is still not fully realized. Millions of Americans live without health insurance. Even for those who have it, medical care is often unaffordable. The United States spends more money on health care than any other developed country, and yet deep inequities persist.
We are living in a time of new optimism that America might actually pass single-payer health care, or something very close to it. Dingell’s wife Debbie, who succeeded him in Congress when Dingell retired in 2015, has co-sponsored the House’s most recent Medicare-for-all bill, now a litmus test for any aspiring Democrat who seeks the White House in 2020. The party caught up to the Dingell family 75 years after John’s father first introduced his single-payer bill.
John Dingell’s work has ended, and he will soon be laid to rest at the Arlington National Cemetery. But the work he gave so much of his life to goes on.
from Vox - All http://bit.ly/2SiXKrz
Breaking News: John Dingell had a hand in passing Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare — and still strived for more - News Paper
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