Joan Retsinas

MAHA and MAGA: We are careening back to a rose-tinted "Again." Enough with this bizarre  nostalgia. The past is not a television sit-com of white, middle class nuclear families, Dad happily employed, Mom happily raising offspring who drink unpasteurized milk, swim without sunscreen at the beach, eat food free from preservatives or dyes. No vaccines to wreak havoc on their healthy bodies. Elysium.

The past is darker.

What glorious year do we yearn for?

1950s? Polio was ascendant, leaving thousands of Americans, mostly children, paralyzed or dead. In 1952, the United States had 57,628 cases. In New York City, more than 2,000 people died in 1953. Neither wealth nor nutrition nor sanitation could prevent the disease. Even President Franklin Roosevelt succumbed. Fast forward to 1994, four decades later. Polio was virtually eliminated in North and South America. The reason: vaccines.

The 1950s? In that era nearly all American children got measles. Annually 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis. But until recently, measles was virtually extinct in the United States; pediatricians rarely saw a case. The reason: a vaccine (1963). But since Robert Kennedy and his cohort have downplayed the vaccine, while touting vitamin A as a treatment, measles has spiked.The CDC data (Elon Musks' DOGE has decimated analysts) are not optimal; but as of June 2025, 35 states reported 1,197 confirmed cases.

Back to 1995, when chicken pox was"Again" routine for children. Annually 100 to 150 children died; from 10,500 to 13,500 children were hospitalized. Enter the 1995 vaccine; today we have far fewer cases, fewer hospitalizations, fewer complications. In 2005, we introduced a combination measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine,

In the "Again" past a lot of Americans were both malnourished and hungry. In the 1940s? The military drafted men with dangerously poor nutritional status, a finding that in 1946 spurred the National School Lunch Program. How about the 1960s? Hunger and malnutrition remained rife, particularly in the rural South. A common sight: stunted, apathetic children with swollen stomachs, dull eyes and poorly healing wounds — common sights in the developing world. Watch the 1968 CBS documentary “Hunger in America.” Today researchers no longer find dire malnutrition (we now consume too many not too few calories.) We eliminated dire hunger, not with a spike in income or employment, but with food programs. Thank you, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, later President Richard Nixon (who made food stamps a national program). Yet MAHA and MAGA enthusiasts yearn to shrink those programs, adding requirements for employment, giving states leeway to cut benefits. The history of welfare in this country shows a geographic divide: some states have eagerly cut benefits for the poor, citing"self sufficiency" or "frugality" to mask racism.

Let's review insurance status. Are we nostalgic for the year 2010 when 18.2% of the non-elderly population was uninsured? How about 2015, when 11.7% was uninsured? Today 8.3% have no insurance. Thank Medicare, which in 1965 began to cover retirees and people with disabilities. Thank Medicaid, which covers poor people, depending on the state's assessment of poverty. Thank the Children's Supplemental Health Insurance Program (1997). Thank the Veterans Administration. Finally, thank the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare (2010). Disparities persist: in Mississippi 10.2% are uninsured; in Minnesota, 3.8%. One reason: some states did not opt to expand Medicaid (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming). Nostalgic for "Again,", Congress is debating President Trump's"big beautiful" bill, where 10 million people may lose insurance.

In 1970 abortion was illegal in 33 states, permitted in special circumstances in others. Wealthy women could find safe abortions in selected physician offices, or could travel to Europe, as Sherri Finkbein did when she learned that she had taken thalidomide. Less-wealthy women sought out back alley abortionists, or tried to do the job themselves. Not surprisingly, many women died. In 1973 the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade made abortion legal. Deaths plummeted; the back alley abortionists disappeared, as did the coat hangers. We are returning to that earlier era. In 2022, the Supreme Court in Dobbs v Jackson pushed the country back to the early 1970s. Today abortion is illegal in some states, carries restrictions in others, and imposes criminal penalties on physicians in still others. Ironically, today medications offer safer options; yet the penalties persist. We have catapulted back.

Let's hope that Martin Luther King was correct, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, not that it boomerangs back to a grim "Again."

Joan Retsinas is a sociologist in Providence, R.I., who writes about health care. Email joan.retsinas@gmail.com.