Aneurin Bevan had a LOT to do with the introduction of national healthcare in Britain and good old Nye had the backing of the Welsh working class among many others. Bevan was in the left faction of the Labour Party, a faction which has since pretty much been squashed by "New Labour".
Anyway, to get national healthcare in Australia in 1984 took the desire of the working class and action by the left in the Labor Party in opposition to all the usual conservatives, including a substantial portion of the doctors' union aka the Australian Medical Association. Of course, the Labor Party had to hold government then to get the legislation passed. And this is NOT to say that the Australian Labor Party is always on the side of working class interests.
Anyway in the UK, this is an excerpt from the Wiki article on Aneurin Bevan, a very interesting and admirable fellow worker, IMO. If you've got time, check out full text on the web; how he responded to the 1926 General Strike and his principled position vis a vis Communists in Britain which earned him LP censor in 1939: ******************
The 1945 General Election proved to be a landslide victory for the Labour Party, giving it a large enough majority to allow the implementation of the party's manifesto commitments and to introduce a programme of far-reaching social reforms that were collectively dubbed the 'Welfare State' (see 1945 Labour Election Manifesto). The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered Housing. Thus, the responsibility for instituting a new and comprehensive National Health Service, paid for by a severe increase in marginal tax rates and with no fees paid at the point of delivery, as well as tackling the country's severe post-war housing shortage, fell to the youngest member of Attlee's Cabinet in his first ministerial position.
On the "appointed day", July 5, 1948, having overcome political opposition from both the Conservative Party and from within his own party, and after a dramatic show down with the British Medical Association, which had threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service, Bevan's National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force. After eighteen months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, but without compromising on the fundamental principles of his NHS proposals. Bevan later gave the famous quote that, in order to broker the deal, he had "stuffed their mouths with gold". Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in England and Wales were nationalised and came under Bevan's supervisory control as Health Minister.
full: full: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan
The US left should learn from the history of victories in the health front. There is a bill in Congress now to support universal healthcare, go to the communities you live in and support it yourself. There is also one major party candidate who has come out for universal healthcare, Kucinich. Make Hillary and others squirm over this.
Mike B)
An injury to one is an injury to all http://www.iww.org/
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