Altman Part 2 and 3

Why Many Health Care Reforms Didn’t Pass

Altman says that the wealthier tended to be healthier, while the poor tended to be sick. That is because the wealthy people could afford private insurance, while the poor either were not covered by Medicaid or could not afford a private plan. Even though there were efforts to change this, conservative republicans refused anything that meant the expansion of federal government. .  This is still the case today. There was much opposition to the Affordable Care Act because this meant the government’s involvement in purchasing health care plans. I think that it is interesting that even southern democrats supported the republicans because they felt that if any health care reform was passed then they believed that they would be forced to integrate hospitals. It still baffles me every time I read that page I despise the Jim Crow rules of the 60s. Others opposed health care reform because it meant an increase in taxes for the working middle class. The people who needed health care the most had no means to pay for it. But once Medicare and Medicaid is finally passed many people are happy because they are finally insured.