Richard Nixon, considered an arch-conservative right winger in the 1960s and 1970s and detested by many liberals in his day, would be way too liberal for the Republican Party of 2017. And one of the main reasons is because Nixon supported universal health care via the private sector. The “Nixoncare” plan that Nixon and Sen. Ted Kennedy agreed to in the early 1970s was somewhat similar to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, aka Obamacare, but with more generous provisions. Kennedy would have been preferred a single payer system, but that wasn’t going to happen under Nixon’s watch. So Kennedy agreed to “Nixoncare,” reasoning that he wasn’t going to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Then came Watergate, and the Nixon/Kennedy plan for health care reform fell by the wayside.
In fact, one of the people President Barack Obama consulted in 2009/2010 was none other than Stuart Altman, Nixon’s advisor/consultant on health care reform. Obamacare was influenced by Republicans such as Nixon, Mitt Romney, the Heritage Foundation and Bob Dole. It was a major compromise that didn’t go as far as “Nixoncare” would have if it hadn’t been derailed, but it was an improvement over the hellish system the U.S. had before.
Obamacare was actually to the right of Richard Nixon on health care. But instead of thanking Obama for his willingness to compromise, Republicans and Tea Party wingnuts screamed about “death panels” and responded with wacko insults along the lines of “that there Kenyan Marxist Muslim voodoo witch doctor is out to destroy our wonderful, perfect health insurance system.” Republicans oppose universal health care on purely partisan lines; that, and a deeply held belief that anyone who doesn’t make at least six figures should die in the streets.
You know the modern-day Republican Party has truly gone insane when even Richard Nixon’s ideas are considered too left-wing.
