Medicare and Feuding

It was on a winter's night in Melbourne in 1967 that John Deeble, a bright young academic answering a summons, met the head of the Australian Labor Party to discuss Deeble's pet topic. In the home of a Labor parliamentarian, Deeble was calm as he spoke on the notion of a universal health insurance system with the imposing Opposition leader, Gough Whitlam. "Why should I have been nervous?" Deeble, 73, says now. "I knew more about the subject than he did." Whitlam liked what he heard and asked Deeble and colleague Dick Scotton to put something in writing. Within a year...