gompers railed against variety of turn-of-20th century/so-called progressive era state-based 'reform' programs, including national health insurance, on grounds that they would hurt labor organizing (bismarck certainly thought so when he introduced nhs in 1880s germany, his intention was to 'buy' workers away from social democratic party) *and* that they stemmed from technocratic - not gompers word - view that claimed to know not only what workers wanted, but what was best for them as well...
new deal era initiated peculiarly u.s. form of private (really corporate)/publicly sudsidized health care - leaving many folks without either - still existing today, unions did, roosevelt and new dealers discussed universal health coverage in context of other legislation but rejected it because they thought dixiecrats would oppose, recall that only small percentage of folks lived to established retirement age of 65 and that agriculture & domestic labor was exempted from minimum wage, thus, racists were able to exclude/severely limit any benefits to southern black population (decade later, in aftermath of ww2, same southern congressional members who had voted for fair labor standards act voted for taft-hartley in midst of attempts to begin organizing the south)...
post-ww2 unions did, by and large, support/promote national health insurance, including truman's proposal in '48 (which some think he proposed as ploy during campaign, assuming that he couldn't - and, therefore, wouldn't have to - deliver), failure/inability to establish nhs led unions to push for employer-paid premiums as part of collective bargaining, jurisdicational fragmentation of u.s. organized labor exacerbated - and continues to exacerbate - things, creating 'have' coverage/'don't have' coverage situations, so health insurance became - and remains - issue that unions use in organizing (and it has been at forefront of some of seiu's success in recent years)...
comprehensive/democratic/just reform' of health care *industy* would/will involve changes to about 15% of u.s. economy *and* would/will have to overcome mitigating factors of interest group arena, economist victor fuchs, who has probably done more mainstream study of this stuff than anyone else (and who has been touting a plan of universal vouchers for awhile) said years ago that comprehensive/universal health coverage of any kind will probably only come to the u.s. via economic depression, a major war, or massive 'street heat' - not his word - politics... mh