Harry S Truman is famous for his Show-Me state attitude and his "the buck stops here" sign, as well as his commission investigating war profiteering. What many don’t remember or never learned about, however, are his proposals for national health care. From the Truman Library website:

On November 19, 1945, only 7 months into his presidency, Harry S. Truman sent a Presidential message to the United States Congress proposing a new national health care program. . . .

The most controversial aspect of the plan was the proposed national health insurance plan. In the November 19th address, President Truman called for the creation of a national health insurance fund, to be run by the federal government.

President Truman’s plan was to improve the state of health care in the United States by addressing five issues, "each of which contributes to all the others":

• lack of medical professionals in rural and low income areas,
• lack of medical facilities in those same areas,
• lack of spending on medical education and research,
• ways to pay for health care when it is needed (i.e., insurance/shared risk), and
• a way to provide for lost wages due to sickness or disability.

The bill to do this was co-sponsored by Rep. John Dingell, Sr., but it was derailed (as the Truman library notes) by McCarthyist cries of "socialism! communism!" 

Truman was hardly a free-spending, government-is-the-answer-to-everything politician. No, he was grounded firmly in the nitty-gritty of everyday life of ordinary people, and proposed what we today call a public plan to spread the risk around among everyone.

If you look at what Truman’s war profiteering commission did during World War II, you can only imagine what he’d do with a similar health-care profiteering commission today.

On his House website, John Dingell, Jr. notes "At the beginning of every session of Congress, Congressman Dingell introduces the national health insurance bill his father sponsored when he was a Member." On her Senate website, Claire McCaskill takes pride in sitting at Truman’s desk in the Senate chambers and continuing Truman’s example of oversight when it comes to military contracting.

Perhaps they, and their colleagues, can finish the job on a real public option that Truman saw needed doing more than 60 years ago. 

Keep calling!