Healthcare A Priority For Richard Nixon
[Jonathan Movroydis recently graduated from the University of California, Irvine. His research and writing interests include political ideology, religion, and their respective impact on domestic and world politics.]
Flashback thirty-five years, and you have a national healthcare debate that involves RN.
On the CBS Evening News in 1974, Washington correspondent Daniel Schorr provided a compare and contrast between President Nixon’s plan for expanding private insurance coverage and Senator Ted Kennedy’s proposal (co-sponsored by Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills) for a labor supported single payer plan.
For the pragmatic Richard Nixon, the goals of the plan were simple: 1) it would help more people, 2) expand supply, 3) create efficiency, 4) keep people well, 5) and give Americans access to the finest healthcare in the world.
According to Richard Nixon’s post-presidential memoirs, Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Mills ultimately revised their plan to resemble the President’s, legislation — he contends — that would have passed if not for the domestic discord that followed.
According to speechwriter Raymond Price, Richard Nixon’s healthcare push was “something personal for him.” According to a 2007 McClatchy piece it was an issue that he was passionate about when he first entered the halls of Congress in 1947:
The same piece underscores Richard Nixon’s continued passion as an elder statesman in his 1992 book Sieze The Moment:
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Read entire article at The New Nixon
Flashback thirty-five years, and you have a national healthcare debate that involves RN.
On the CBS Evening News in 1974, Washington correspondent Daniel Schorr provided a compare and contrast between President Nixon’s plan for expanding private insurance coverage and Senator Ted Kennedy’s proposal (co-sponsored by Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills) for a labor supported single payer plan.
For the pragmatic Richard Nixon, the goals of the plan were simple: 1) it would help more people, 2) expand supply, 3) create efficiency, 4) keep people well, 5) and give Americans access to the finest healthcare in the world.
According to Richard Nixon’s post-presidential memoirs, Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Mills ultimately revised their plan to resemble the President’s, legislation — he contends — that would have passed if not for the domestic discord that followed.
According to speechwriter Raymond Price, Richard Nixon’s healthcare push was “something personal for him.” According to a 2007 McClatchy piece it was an issue that he was passionate about when he first entered the halls of Congress in 1947:
Nixon first proposed national health insurance as a conservative California congressman in 1947. He grew up poor and lost two brothers to tuberculosis, which marked him for life. He frequently pointed to the cure for tuberculosis as a medical marvel that underscored the need for a public-private partnership on health care.
The same piece underscores Richard Nixon’s continued passion as an elder statesman in his 1992 book Sieze The Moment:
“We need to work out a system that includes a greater emphasis on preventive care, sufficient public funding for health insurance for those who cannot afford it in the private sector, competition among healthcare providers and health insurance providers to keep down the costs of both, and decoupling the cost of healthcare from the cost of adding workers to the payroll,” he wrote.
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