The Force Opposing Universal Healthcare

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James Madison once said, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition”. In creating a new form of government, Madison tried to effectively plan for a Constitution that would account for the fact that human beings by nature are self-interested. The United States has witnessed tremendous growth within its people since Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Not only has rapid political and technological advances unified American into a supreme power, but triumphs like the Civil Rights Movement have also helped to promote equality. Yet, from 2009 to 2010, the number of people without health insurance increased from 49.0 million to 49.9 million. Analyzing James Madison’s ideology in The Federalist 10 and 51 suggests that a correlation exists between factionalism and the failure of the United States to universalize healthcare. In order to understand the connection of factionalism and national healthcare this paper will first explain Madison’s notion of factionalism by referencing key components and commentary from his argument in The Federalist 10 and 51. The second part of this paper will discuss the history of American healthcare as a means to explain the many factions that have hindered the success of nationalizing health insurance. Furthermore, referencing the emergence of factions within the healthcare debate, like the AMA (American Medical Association), will highlight the stigma surrounding national healthcare. The last part of this paper will put forward the question of whether America will ever see complete universal health insurance.

The Federalist Papers were a set of letters published in New York Newspapers that started as a rebuttal argument against the Anti-federalist that among all things feared government interv...

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