At the heart of the ongoing debate over healthcare reform in the United States is the extent to which government has a responsibility to help people in need.
Opponents of government intervention complain about waste and inefficiency, the loss of choice, and an ever-growing budget deficit.
Those who favor a larger government role suggest that government has a responsibility to help the disadvantaged, protect the public against powerful corporate interests, and to ensure equal access to something as basic as health care.
This debate over the proper role of the federal government is not new. When the U.S. government created its social security program in the 1930s, there were similar concerns about government expansion.
In this new activity from SIRS Decades, check out advertisements that were used in the early 20th century to promote the government's social security program and ponder their relevance to the healthcare debate today.
Social Security was created in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was designed to protect American families from the crushing burden of poverty and unemployment. The emphasis on economic security is evident in these promotional posters that were published by the Social Security Board.
Click each poster to view it inside SIRS Decades (trial sign up).
Activity
Examine these three advertisements (above) from the 1930s that promote the U.S. government's social security program.
Describe how these ads are meant to persuade people that social security is a necessary and valuable program. How are the ads meant to counteract opposing arguments? How might the opponents of social security rebut the rhetorical appeals of these ads?
Then create a poster, modeled on the above, that argues for or against healthcare reform today.
