Posted by:
dan80woma
at Tue Nov 9 00:47:10 2010 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by dan80woma ]
Your lazy ways have done you in once more. Here is what Nixon was proposing (nothing like todays massive health care debacle)
Medicare and Medicaid were strong programs from the start, and wildly popular – so much so that liberal Democrats in Congress began looking for ways to expand coverage for all Americans, to create “Medicare for All.” Indeed, when Richard Nixon ran for re-election in 1972, he initially thought his likeliest opponent would be a young Senator who was making expanding health care to every American the cause of his career – Ted Kennedy. From the point of view of maintaining a political livelihood for his party, Nixon’s decision to tackle universal health care in 1974 made a lot of sense.
Moreover, Nixon’s plan would be a stark contrast to the single-payer plans on the table. In his 1974 State of the Union address, a key feature that he stressed was that his plan would require no new taxes – certainly not the $80 to $100 million that a Medicare for All program was though to cost. As he said, “This is the wrong approach. This has been tried abroad, and it has failed. It is not the way we do things here in America.” Instead, Nixon proposed building on the employer-based insurance system, Medicare and Medicaid. Those who were not offered benefits by their employer would be eligible for a subsidized public plan with costs shared by the federal and state government – basically, a Medicaid that was subsidized, not free. More importantly, a minimum level of comprehensive benefits would be established for everyone, regardless of how you were covered. (It’s worth noting that at the same time, on a parallel track to his Comprehensive Health Insurance Act, Nixon was also giving government support to the creation of HMOs.)
Surprise – there was no outcry of socialized medicine from the AMA or the private insurance industry, since the reform plan would hardly affect them. Even as the Watergate scandal was unfolding, Ted Kennedy brokered a compromise between the White House and Democrats. But pressure against the plan came from the left – particularly labor unions – who thought that with a Democrat sure to retake the White House in 1976, they could get a better deal on health care reform then. Ultimately, time ran out
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RE: conflicted... - dan80woma, Tue Nov 9 00:47:10 2010