About

This site serves as an introduction to the changing world of health insurance and health care providers in the United States. It is authored by Bruce Gourley, an historian, writer and Baptist who views basic health care as a human rights issue.

Baptists from their beginnings in the seventeenth century were champions of human rights issues such as religious pluralism, religious liberty, and separation of church and state. In the 20th century, Baptist minister and Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas advocated for the modern human rights issue of health care. Recognized in 2004 by Canadian citizens as the Greatest Canadian of All Time, Douglas believed that all people deserved access to basic health care, a conviction that led him to become the father of the Canadian public health care system.

It is in this tradition that the author of this site hopes to see public health care enacted in the United States within his lifetime.

Current Health Care Reform

The current health care reform legislation working its way through Congress in 2010 promises to begin to address some of the great shortcomings of America's primarily for-profit health care system that is now ranked last among developed nations in terms of efficiency and national cost.

While for-profit health care corporations continue to dramatically increase premiums, they are reinvesting less-and-less premium dollars into medical services and paying billions of dollars to executives. As a result, skyrocketing health care costs jeopardize the future of America and the nation's citizens. 

Although the current health care reforms fall short of public universal health care, they are a step in the right direction.

Stay Informed

HealthReform.Gov
Health Reform (The White House)
Health Reform News (New York Times)

More Health Care and Insurance Information