Power to Heal

Power To Heal presents a poignant chapter in the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans. It highlights how a new national program, Medicare, was used to mount a momentous coordinated effort that desegregated thousands of hospitals across the country, practically overnight.

Before Medicare, disparities in access to hospitals were dramatic. Less than half the hospitals served blacks and whites equally, and in the South 1/3 would not admit blacks even in life-threatening emergencies. Power To Heal shows how the Civil Rights Movement worked with the federal government to move toward health care equity.

Current efforts to implement health reform echo this struggle of a half century ago to move the health care system toward equity.