In 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
It was a recognition of a universal truth in human history: Social stability, the rule of law, and civilization will eventually break down if a population is immiserated for too long while a handful of elites profit. And just two months after that speech, Kennedy honed in on the health care crisis in America, pressing for the passage of what would become Medicare.
“What we are now talking about doing, most of the countries of Europe did years ago,” he said at a Madison Square Garden rally. “We are behind every country, pretty nearly, in Europe, in this matter of medical care for our citizens.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about that moment in history in light of the news over the past week. All of a sudden, after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, everyone is talking about health care, even though almost nobody was talking about it during the presidential campaign.
