“Medical Care, Medical Costs: The Search for a Health Insurance Policy” is an article by Rashi Fein illustrates the development of Blue Cross and Medicare. It traces the needfor, as well as the history, and benefits of these two programs. The purpose of this articleis to make the reader aware of the inability of the elderly and the disabled to fund theirown medical care and to illustrate the need for support of Medicare by the community toshare in the uncertainty. The variance of the types and sources of the evidence helps tosupport this purpose.This article is directed towards the non-historian. It is an attempt to convey to thecommon voter the importance of Medicare. This direction towards the non-historian canbe seen in the use of endnotes over footnotes, as well as the appeal at the end of thearticle proclaiming that the understanding of Medicare by the voters would lead to itscontinued support of the program.Further evidence of this purpose is illustrated throughout the article. The authorslowly builds up an understanding of the need for Medicare and Blue Cross by tracing thedevelopment of insurance. And then systematically showing how the elderly anddisabled would be unable to get the care they need without it. This article holds togetherin the systematic way it covers the issue. Another point that holds the article together is its use of mainly primary sourcematerials. This alleviates some of the risk involved in blindly accepting other historiansinterpretations. Also, the scholarly nature of these articles helps to bolster the article’svalidity.This article accomplishes it’s purpose of convincing the reader as to the necessityof Medicare through the use of contextual and scholarly evidence, as well as through thewell laid-out format. This article would be useful in serving its purpose as a tool toconvince voters as to the necessity of Medicare....
