Underground Usa

The story of health insurance in the United States begins not with Wall Street sharks circling for profits, but with a modest act of community solidarity during the Great Depression.In 1929, at Baylor University Hospital in Texas, administrators faced empty beds and unpaid bills as economic collapse kept patients away. So, they devised a prepaid plan: for a small monthly fee, teachers could secure hospital care without fear of ruinous costs. This became the blueprint for Blue Cross, a nonprofit model that spread rapidly across the country in the 1930s. Soon after, Blue Shield plans emerged to cover physician services. These were explicitly nonprofit entities, often granted tax-exempt status and special regulatory privileges in exchange for serving the public good—community rating (charging everyone the same premium regardless of health status), acting as insurers of last resort, and prioritizing access over profit.During World War II, wage freezes pushed employers to offer health benefits as a perk, cementing