Woodrow Stanley Lloyd

Woodrow Stanley Lloyd (July 16, 1913-April 7, 1972) was a Canadian politician who succeeded Tommy Douglas as Premier of the Province of Saskatchewan. Douglas left provincial politics to become leader of the federal New Democratic Party.

Born in Webb, Saskatchewan, as leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party, a social democratic political party, Lloyd was responsible for implementing the universal health care plan that Douglas had introduced. Lloyd's government had to cope with the doctors strike of July 1962, in which the province's physicians, backed by the resources of the American Medical Association, withdrew service in an attempt to defeat the Medicare initiative.

Lloyd and his government refused to back down on the concept of a universal public health care system, and persuaded the doctors to settle after 23 days. While Medicare was implemented, the political turmoil did lasting damage to the Lloyd government, contributing to its defeat at the hands of Ross Thatcher's Saskatchewan Liberal Party in the 1964 provincial election. Medicare was later extended to all provinces and territories in Canada as a result of the Saskatchewan experiment. Lloyd died in Seoul, South Korea while working on a United Nations Development Program.