Healthcare deja vu

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Obama's Health Care Dilemma Evokes Memories Of 1974

By Christopher Weaver, KHN Staff Writer
Sep 03, 2009

As soaring health care costs threatened to push medical care out of reach for many families, the president offered an ambitious new plan to curb the growth in spending and extend health coverage to every American. But he faced fierce opposition from Capitol Hill.

Sound like the current political wrangling? Well, that was 1974 and the president was Richard M. Nixon. The partisan battles and Democratic infighting that threatens this year’s health reform efforts is reminiscent of the battles dating back to that era, says a veteran of that campaign.

...

Q: What were the plans?

You had four or five different options. You had the far left, which was the original Kennedy bill . But then Kennedy himself became much more of a centrist. Then you had the administration bill. It was, in some respects, quite similar to where the Obama administration started out. It had an employer mandate. It had big subsidies for poor people to buy private insurance. It had an extension of Medicaid. And you had a strong push, surprisingly from a Republican administration.

Q: What are the key similarities?

You had a political spectrum that looked a lot like the spectrum today. You had a very strong Democratic Congress, but you had a lot of Southern Democrats who now are all Republicans. opposed to big government. You had liberal Democrats wanting a variation on single payer, and then you had the moderates backing the administration's bill, or

Q: What caused the 1974 efforts, in the end, to collapse?

A: It was a combination of personalities and issues. You had three strong supporters for pushing it forward: President Nixon, Sen. Kennedy and the third was Congressman Mills. Nixon resigned. Mills got caught up in personal turmoil with Fanne Fox… and he became muted. Mills lost power over his committee and it broke into… warring factions, which is a lesson we need to worry about today.

more...

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Checking-In-With/stuart-altman.aspx

Kaiser Health News spoke to Stewart Altman, then a deputy assistant secretary in the health department and an author of Nixon's overhaul plan. More recently, he was a health care adviser to President Barack Obama’s campaign.

He is now a professor at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He spoke about why health reform failed in the ‘70s, and his sense of déjà vu.

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1. .

wow that was a fast sinker

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. .

:kick:

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3. Thanks

Time for lunch.