Big ideas, broken institutions, and the wrath at the grass roots.

摘要

As Franklin Delano Roosevelt contemplated the end of World War II, he cast around for another crusade to lead. He alighted on "cradle to grave" national health insurance. Roosevelt tasked his long-time aide Sam Rosen-man with drafting a health plan and, more important, a political strategy with which to win it. By the time the plan was ready, Roosevelt had died and the Rosenman draft passed on to President Harry S. Truman, who seized it with fervor. From Truman, national health insurance passed down through the Democratic generations-the last, elusive, social democratic bequest from the New Deal.