From 2008: 'Obama Touts Single-Payer System for Health Care' - WSJ

[frazzled]

33. He's certainly worse than all those other presidents who didn't give us a single-payer system

Even when they believed in it. Lyndon Johnson was the only one who ever came close, with Medicare. Obama's next best, because he actually achieved a plan that inched us forward (to be implemented in 2014, so hold your guns). As for all the others, from TR to FDR to Truman to Nixon (yes) and Clinton. None of them got bupkis.

U.S. efforts to achieve universal coverage began with Theodore Roosevelt, who had the support of progressive health care reformers in the 1912 election but was defeated.[5] During the Great Depression in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Isidore Falk and Edgar Sydenstricter to help draft provisions to Roosevelt's pending Social Security legislation to include publicly funded health care programs. These reforms were attacked by the American Medical Association as well as state and local affiliates of the AMA as "compulsory health insurance." Roosevelt ended up removing the health care provisions from the bill in 1935. Fear of organized medicine's opposition to universal health care became standard for decades after the 1930s.[6]
Following the second world war, President Harry Truman called for universal health care as a part of his Fair Deal in 1949 but strong opposition stopped that part of the Fair Deal.[7][8] However, in 1946 the National Mental Health Act was passed, as was the Hospital Survey and Construction Act, or Hill-Burton Act.
The Medicare program was established by legislation signed into law on July 30, 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are either age 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria.
In his 1974 State of the Union address, President Richard M. Nixon called for comprehensive health insurance.[9] On February 6, 1974, he introduced the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act. Nixon's plan would have mandated employers to purchase health insurance for their employees, and provided a federal health plan, similar to Medicaid, that any American could join by paying on a sliding scale based on income.[10][11] The New York Daily News wrote that Ted Kennedy rejected the universal health coverage plan offered by Nixon because it wasn't everything he wanted it to be. Kennedy later realized it was a missed opportunity to make major progress toward his goal.[12]
Former President Jimmy Carter wrote in 1982 that Kennedy’s disagreements with Carter's proposed approach thwarted Carter’s efforts to provide a comprehensive health-care system for the country.[13]
The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) amended the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to give some employees the ability to continue health insurance coverage after leaving employment.
[edit]Clinton initiative
See also: Health Security Express
Health care reform was a major concern of the Bill Clinton administration headed up by First Lady Hillary Clinton; however, the 1993 Clinton health care plan was not enacted into law. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) made it easier for workers to keep health insurance coverage when they change jobs or lose a job[citation needed], and also provided national standards for protecting personal health information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_health_care_reform_in_the_United_States#First_plans