American Society in the 1980s

The 1980s was a decade of social and economic conservatism in the United States. Ronald Reagan, a former actor, was president from 1980 to 1988, and, George Herbert Walker Bush (Reagan's vice president) was president from 1989 until 1992. The Reagan and Bush administrations were fiscally and socially conservative, cutting taxes for the wealthy, eliminating certain restrictions on businesses, and reducing funding to a wide variety of social services such as low-income food programs and child day care centers. During this time there was economic growth and prosperity for the well-to-do, while the nation accumulated enormous national debt because the budget was not balanced.

One of the areas that suffered cutbacks during the Reagan years was government funding for hospitals and medical programs. Many mental health centers and centers for the elderly shut down during the decade, and hospitals were often overcrowded, particularly those in the inner...