A satisfactory system of health insurance should provide:

1. That everyone should have access to adequate health and medical services.

2. That everyone should have the kind of services, and all the services, he needs to promote better health.

3. That everyone should be able to obtain these without regard for the level of his personal income.

-- Oscar Ewing, Director, Federal Security Agency,
The Nation’s Health, A Ten Year Program: A Report to the President, 1948