Is it true that in 1972 Nixon proposed a universal health care?

[question everything]

What happened?

[Shrek]

1. Link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703919.html?hpid=topnews

[question everything]

4. Thank you. Yes, I agree with the conclusion: grab what you can

which is why I think we should accept a deal even without a public option, and leave it for the future to be added. This may help us keeping the majority, perhaps even enlarge it in 2010, when, history tells us, the ruling party often loses.

[Better Believe It]

9. You want to enlarge something that won't even start up until 2013 ... if it is passed?

Why would people vote for Democrats 2010 if the legislation won't have any impact on their lives until 2013?

If it's a good bill, people won't feel it and if it's a bad bill the Republicans will have a year to hammer it!

[quiller4]

38. Maybe for the same reason people supported Ds after the

passage of Social Security with first benefits paid much further into the future.

[grantcart]

31. without a public option it is not health insurance

In fact it will put the government in the position of promoting universal coverage by subsidizing more profits for private insurers.

These private insurers are conducting what virtually amounts to a criminal conspiracy to defraud contracts by denying vast amount of contracted care.


Public Option IS the compromise - take it away and there is no reform.

[Turbineguy]

2. Nixon gets a bad rap around here

and much of it deservedly so.

But he was smart enough to see the benefits of a healthy population. Something that today's repubs cannot do.

[tosh]

5. His plan was a subsidy to the insurance industry

just like the rethugs would like today, mandate & all.

[enid602]

10. good programs

He also signed Affirmitive Action, Section 8, laws regarding 401(K)´s, EPA. I can´t think of any good programs signed by Rep Presidents since Nixon.

[question everything]

17. And he started the EPA (nt)

[XemaSab]

20. Virtually every environmental law we have was signed under Nixon

The clean air act, clean water act, endangered species act, banning DDT, the National Environmental Policy Act... plus starting the EPA.

Of course, here in California we have the California Environmental Quality Act, which was signed into law by Jerry Brow... oh, sorry, that was Ronald Reagan who signed that one.

Good times. :D

[harun]

32. I don't know what todays repubs can see. I mean, remember when they

were "compassionate" conservatives? What are they now?

Other than just getting really upset about whatever Fox News tell them to get upset about, they don't have a clue about what is going on or what this country needs.

[hedgehog]

3. Nixon gets a lot of credit for being a liberal on domestic issues.

My take on it is that he was a snob. he was only interested in international affairs and was bored by domestic issues. this left a lot of space for folks like Daniel Patrick Moynihan to slip things past him.

[karynnj]

8. Nixon was not a snob, he was very self conscious because he had middle class roots

He resented the sons of the elite, such as JFK.

He had a very liberal Congress - and the mood of the country was liberal as well. He was pushed by the environmental movement to sign the EPA into law.

[hedgehog]

12. Call him an intellectual snob, then.

[karynnj]

14. But that would be better than anything I usually call him

:)

[WinkyDink]

25. He wasn't that, either. He had a life-longer loathing of the Intelligentsia.

[Odin2005]

33. He was a Quaker, too, oddly enough.

How he squared that with his warmongering is a mystery to me.

[question everything]

16. Whatever it took

No doubt, today he would not be accepted in the Republican party. Palin and Limpdick would call him - gasp - a liberal.

And, I suppose, you can tell something similar about Obama who prefers the domestic issues.

[Ter]

29. If Nixen were alive and well, I don't think Palin or any puke would dare

go against him. Wasn't he one of the Founding Fathers of the Shadow Government? Or has it been in effect before he came to power?

[ieoeja]

23. He was pretty liberal on foreign issues as well: detente, SALT, opening China.

Dropping Churchill/Truman's Iron Curtain thereby exposing the Soviet populace to Western influence is pretty much what brought down the Soviet Union. As bad as things were in the Soviet Union, the populace truly believed the West had it much worse. Getting rid of the Iron Curtain showed the Soviet people how wrong that belief was.

Nixon presaged this strategy in his "kitchen debate" while Ike's vice-president.

[Hippo_Tron]

36. Yea Pinochet and Cambodia were really progressive

:eyes:

[liberalpragmatist]

6. He proposed an employer mandate, plus subsidies

And also tried to shift people into HMOs. It was similar to the approach being pushed by Obama now and in other ways was similar to what the Clintons proposed in 1993.

Ted Kennedy did negotiate with him to cut a deal, but ultimately walked away. At the time, Labor and most liberal Democrats wanted single-payer (like we still do), and Watergate began to politically weaken Nixon, so Kennedy and other Democrats opted to hold out and wait till a Democrat regained the White House, when they figured they could cut a better deal.

[question everything]

39. And we regret this even today

This, I think, is the problem with the White House letting Congress come up with something. These are 543 individuals who think about their re-election and about headlines in the local papers. Plus, twitter, and Facebook and YouTube which prevents any serious discussions behind closed doors.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. Hadn't heard about that

But I do remember Michael Moore including a taped conversation with Nixon and his aides talking about developing HMO's in "Sicko". I do think that his administration was involved with that. Whether or not he actually supported universal health care I don't know. Based on what I can remember of the taped conversation, it sounded like he was more concerned about how HMOs could benefit insurance companies first and foremost. :shrug:

[question everything]

18. The link, above explains it quite well

Here it is again

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703919.html?hpid=topnews

[Proud Liberal Dem]

21. Thanks for the link

It seems that there is a lesson to be had in there for President Obama and Congress about NOT waiting for godot....er....perfection (i.e. single-payer) before taking some action that at least significantly improves upon the current situation.

[Drunken Irishman]

11. He proposed a type of healthcare reform.

Certainly better than not doing anything (which happened).

Not the best, however. Though it might've made a true universal system more easy to push through had it passed.

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. It was basically the birth of Kaiser Permanente and other HMO's

As this taped conversation proves, the entire objective all along was "less care, more profit" :grr:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHTte8jRLk

[TreasonousBastard]

15. It was 1974 and it was...

the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act.

1974 was also the year he was impeached and resigned, so it never got much of a hearing.

Major Federal health care schemes had been proposed since the late 1800's, and failed every time, except for a few public health hospitals. First, they were claimed to be tools of the Hapsburgs to take over America, since Germany started national health. Under Truman, national health was going to lead us down the road to Godless Communism.

Nixon, btw, could have been hailed as one of the great liberal Presidents, had he not been such a paranoid scumbag. He was pro-choice, gave us the EPA, OSHA, and the Clean Air Act, fought school bussing but otherwise supported much civil rights legislation, and was constantly battling the conservative wing of his party.

Democrats publicly celebrated when he resigned, but the real partying was behind the scenes where many Republicans breathed a great sigh of relief that the traitor to their party was out of there. In fact, there would have been no impeachemnt without a backdoor deal with the Republicans that they would support it.

[question everything]

19. I know. Whenever there is a program about it, I am fascinated by the two sides of him

an intelligent visionary man on the one hand, and a paranoid on the other.

We visited his library in Yorba Linda, CA, and realized how much influence he had on world affairs in the 50s.

[Sebastian Doyle]

26. Literally a split personality

His "liberal" Quaker upbringing always at odds with being a political creation of the Bush Crime Family (who were obviously anything but liberal OR spiritual)

[phleshdef]

22. The dirty secret is that Nixon was a paranoid asshole who happened to be highly liberal.

[kenny blankenship]

24. If your opposition wants something badly you have two choices

A. Oppose them categorically and absolutely. You may succeed but you may also get steam rollered.

B. Pretend you want something similar. String them along with counterproposals, tangle them up in endless negotiations, subvert their ideas and try to make their policies serve your principles, not theirs.

Guess which response Nixon chose in this instance.

[question everything]

40. And, it appears, is what the Republicans are doing right now

They just want to give Obama any victory, even if millions of people will suffer.

[and-justice-for-all]

27. nixon was never an advocate for universal health care...

and along with Kissinger, they both sold us to private health care/insurance industry.

[question everything]

28. Still, perhaps if Congress grabbed whatever was offered

by now we would have had something, or most would have realized that a "government program" is not the boogie man that they are now trying to display.

I am surprised, also, that Kennedy had so much power and influence then. He really was still young, and shortly after Chappaquiddick. I would have thought that there were more seasoned Senators there who would have negotiating on something.

[democrat2thecore]

30. Kennedy would disagree

He has written that he regretted not working with Nixon on health care. He felt that the right had gotten to Nixon and pressured RN into a more conservative bill. Nixon, according to Ted Kennedy, truly wanted a Universal Bill with people under X amount of money getting regular policy and NOT ushered into sub-par care. In fact, he calls it one of three biggest regrets. We'll read about it in his memoir next month.

[northernlights]

34. when you look closely at Nixon

it shows how far to the right we've been shoved. :( In hindsight, he's practically a raging liberal compared to today.

[Sherman A1]

35. Precisely

[unapatriciated]

37. Here's your answer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QkgUkM0o6Q

[question everything]

41. Thanks. Still, I think that Kaiser Permanente is one of the

less reviled HMO..

And, this was his proposal, but a Democratic Congress could then have changed it.

At least, this would have been a start and today we may have some form of a universal care.