When Richard Nixon was a teenager, he watched two of his brothers die. His little brother went first, at age 7, of a sudden and mysterious illness. Then his big brother died at age 22, after a long battle with tuberculosis. It was the 1920s. Health insurance hardly existed. The sicknesses sapped his parents’ meager resources. His mother stopped baking pies for the family’s little grocery store to care full time for her ailing son. Nixon worked as a janitor to earn extra money, and turned down a scholarship to Harvard because it didn’t cover room and board.
When Nixon, a staunch Republican, became president in 1969, he threw his weight behind health care reform.
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Those of us who have been around a long time know what this current fight was about and it wasn't whether ACA or the mandate were a good idea, it was simply a case of who's idea it was. It is regrettable that so many people are easily swayed and that the nation as a whole has a real short term memory. But then that is why we move forward in such fits and starts. Oddly it is always the insurance companies that win and soak up the money and it is always the "people" who defend them. Why? Well as they say there's one born every minute. A good objective read reminding me of some of the good ideas that used to come out of the "real" Republican Party.
So Nixon was a "staunch" Republican? I do not know what that means, but see it as evidence that Ms. Stockman sees Republicans as foreign creatures. Nixon was not particularly conservative, as he did expand the reach of government on many fronts. His work on health care was an extension of that same philosophy which never got off the ground. NEW PARAGRAPH: At that moment, there was probably a honeymoon of sorts for government sponsored health care, as Medicare and Medicaid were still quite new. What was not known then, was that all that money going into health care would lead to medical care inflation, that actually compounded the problem. Single payer sure sounds great, but its end result is always rationed care. The solution is to harness the power of the free market, and let competition lead to lower prices.
"Richmond" Don't you think in the end that rationed health care is unavoidable. If it is unavoidable wouldn't it be better to face the music now and accept the inevitable and find ways to deal with it. I'm not defending the status quo or Obama's plan or whatever it is the Repubs are promoting. I'm just saying "rationed" or "cost efficient" whichever you want to call it would appear to be unavoidable.
Fair enough. I initially wrote "staunch anti-communist" but had to cut for space...
President Richard Nixon's Special Message to the Congress Proposing a Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan was on February 6, 1974. However, Ted Kennedy, is no different than any other Kennedy who want center stage, fame, glory and publicity: Kennedy was detrimental for all AMERICANS when he decided only the 'Kennedy" political stamp should be on the U.S.A. 'health-care' bill. The Clinton's wouldn't allow Teddy center stage during their health care debates, - but - Obama was desperate for Kennedy approval. It was quid pro quo for Teddy's support to Obama in return for Teddy receiving credit being instrumental, in plain English, allowing CORPORATIONS into the oval office to craft a health care plan for Americans. Democratic policy is self-serving with politicians trying to make a name for themselves, at the expense of the people.