Nixon's Health Care Reform: Well To The Left Of ObamaCare

To put the current health care "reform" proposal into perspective, here's what Richard Nixon Proposed in 1974:

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31krugman.html">Paul Krugman writes of it:

"As many people have pointed out, Nixon’s proposal for health care reform looks a lot like Democratic proposals today. In fact, in some ways it was stronger. Right now, Republicans are balking at the idea of requiring that large employers offer health insurance to their workers; Nixon proposed requiring that all employers, not just large companies, offer insurance.

Nixon also embraced tighter regulation of insurers, calling on states to “approve specific plans, oversee rates, ensure adequate disclosure, require an annual audit and take other appropriate measures.” No illusions there about how the magic of the marketplace solves all problems."

Krugman's piece was written in August, before the recent evisceration of what little good was left in the plan. Right now, Nixon's plan looks that much better. Nixon's plan didn't make it through because Democrats, who controlled Congress, wanted better and they reached an impasse.h

To those who say that this is not the bill that Obama wanted, but simply the best he could get: Feingold says that this is exactly the bill Obama wanted, and Feingold's one of the few people I trust to not lie or shade the truth.

We all need to face the reality that virtually all of today's Democrats, including Obama, are simply Nixon/Reagan Republicans. Actually, they are far to the right of Nixon on many issues (although they escalate dumb wars equally well). If we like having Republicans running our Party, then we're good to go. Otherwise, we need change.

Change we can actually believe in.

Times change. Next.

It's not how I read this at all.

DLC is soooo 90's.

it was still progressive enough for me to vote for him, so there is no comparison.

it's never been tried to cover the population at large, and probably the insurance industry wouldn't want the risk of having to cover the general population. He offered tax credits and subsidies to buy in and people could opt out altogether if they didn't want it. There were no mandates. Also, the FEHB isn't carte blanche. The insurance companies have to offer their product within specific guidelines. This bill doesn't have that, just the pre-existing condition ban but they can charge unlimited premiums for it. Howard also felt that single payer or extending Medicare as a choice wouldn't stand a chance in Congress. I guess what we are seeing today shows he was right. So you tell me which plan is worse? The present plan in the Senate is far worse. There were safeguards in Howard's plan. Also, John Kerry the actual candidate had a similar plan to offer FEHB to the population at large. None of the candidates were offering Medicare as a choice for all.

Of course I was in favor of John Edward's plan in the last election. Too bad he screwed up. I feel if he had made it to the Presidency, he would have populated his administration with fewer DLC, Goldman Sachs bandits.

and Edwards, please...

Nixon Republicans were not nearly as nutty as Reagan ones.

Nixon attempted an initial escalation in Vietnam, and then proceeded to a negotiated settlement.

Nixon was way left of any Republican since. (Let's not even get started on wage and price controls or gas rationing - Nixon had no problem with large scale economic intervention to address problems)

Seriously, you're all lathered up about that asshat?

Were you alive back then?

In terms of policy, he would not be recognizable as a Republican.

But given a choice between "Nixon without the personal demons" and "Zombie Reagan", there is a real difference, and it shows how far off course we've gone as a country.

The American public had the moral capacity to be outraged over the Watergate coverup.

Next to, say, Iran-Contra, Watergate was inconsequential (confined to Watergate and the coverup per se, and excluding the larger plumbers operation).

America was outraged over Watergate, and Congress was ready to impeach.

Reagan got off lighter on Iran Contra than a teenage boy confessing masturbation to a priest.

"I can't recall." Oh, well, heck, he can't recall. That's a wrap, gang.

Maybe the difference was a sense of "Aha! We finally got Tricky Dick!" which almost confirms the suspicions he had, making the entire thing look more like The Caine Mutiny. His incessant griping about the press being out to get him was itself blood in the water for the press.

And he was well to the left of Reagan.

His considerable personal faults aside, imposing wage and price controls, rationing gasoline, opening China, negotiating with the Vietnamese, starting the SALT talks with the Soviets, and starting to broker discussions between Israel and Egypt, are milestone accomplishments well to the left of Reagan's "evil empire" crap and "government is the problem" crap.

Whether he believed boogeymen were living under his bed is a different issue, but his policies were nothing like Reagan.

but it turned out quite differently didn't? It turns out that Kissinger convinced Nixon to let the market take care of itself, there by leaving us with the shit mess we have today.

Nixon may have thought differently, but his actions speak louder than his words.

OSHA, the EPA, expanded diplomacy, tried to develop a national healthcare system.

Nixon was a paranoid, bigoted control freak but he was also responsible for some very, very good things. That may be uncomfortable for some to swallow, but history is history.

And differences of opinion on policy were honestly held differences.

Policy debate today is strawmen as far as the eye can see.

The greatest injury to our politics was Reagan's "Government is the problem" mantra.

I don't want people who believe that running the government.

corporations could not be stopped...

He was also a paranoid nut.

doesn't mean someone isn't out to get you. I think that RW wanted to take Nixon down long before he gave the nation a reason.

president than Obama.

...and certainly don't expect fair play.

Lest we forget, Nixon initially expanded our commitment to a foreign war inherited from a previous administration in an attempt to "finish" it, while conducting a "secret war" in an adjacent countr... um... never mind.

He also didn't work to get it passed. Also, we can thank in some respects the Dems for that too, they (including Ted Kennedy) didn't think it went far enough. So again nothing was done due to wanting perfection on the left.

Nixon had a very jaded attitude towards his environmental legislation. He looked at it as a way to score political points. You can make the case that he passed the most effective environmental legislation in history.

Sometimes I miss the old bastard.

Back then you didn't have the phenomenon of reverse populism where working class people would rally on the national mall against legislation that was clearly in their own economic interests.

Now the corporations (since Reagan) are way firmly in control and profits are so outrageously high and put on the workers back, the insurance corporations see no reason to ever have to make a deal, they are much stronger, they can just lie, use their money and media to stop anything they don't like that hurts even a penny of their obscene profits....

Sometimes we should just take what's being given if the bill is offering most of we need, instead of demanding it all, but we were coming out of the sixties and we wanted it right....I too say this in retrospect.