Hearing Echoes Today Of Two Powerful Moments Fifty Years Past

This year the months of June and July mark two milestone anniversaries in a history of all Americans’ quest for full and equal access to health care. Fifty years ago, on June 7, 1965, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case Griswold v. Connecticut. The decision invalidated a nineteenth-century, Connecticut Comstock law which made “the use of any drug, medicinal article, or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception” illegal. The Court in a 7-2 decision held that this law violated a “right to marital privacy,” securing people against governmental intrusion and decriminalized contraception. Then on July 30, 1965, amendments to the Social Security Act creating Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law, extending health insurance to all Americans over 65 and creating a welfare program designed to help the most indigent of Americans under 65 get health services. These two powerful events took place less than two months apart halfway through one of the most transformative and tumultuous decades in American history. Together, they represent a turning point in the relationship between our government and its citizens’ health. Yet 50 years later, recent reflections on these two milestone events seem to have put greater distance between them than when they were first enacted. Fifty Years Later In their recent annual meeting in New Haven, CT, the appropriate site to memorialize the 50th anniversary of Griswold, historians of American medicine reviewed the...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Costs and Spending Equity and Disparities Featured Insurance and Coverage Long-term Services and Supports Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Population Health 1960s Griswold v. Connecticut King v. Burwell Medicare Medicaid 50th Anniversary Source Type: blogs