During the 20th century, social workers often advocated for universal protections for U.S. citizens against unforeseeable health and employmentrelated losses. The Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 was supported by social workers who wished to
create a strong role for federal government in extending primary care to the nation's pregnant women and young children. President Franklin D.Roosevelt's New Deal policies of the 1930s were crafted with the help of high-level advisers, two of whom were social workers.Social workers who supported Roosevelt subscribed to an ideology that individual misfortune should be viewed as a legitimate public concern. Social workers who supported Roosevelt's economic agenda were sorely disappointed that health care was not included in the statute that became known as the Social Security Act of 1935. Though universal health insurance with government backing was part of President
Roosevelt's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights, the concept was killed by social conservatives claiming that a public sector guarantee of health care for all was far too radical.