If you don't like Obama's health reforms, could you back this Republican plan?

I have always supported the Nixon plan. It fell to the same forces which deracinated the Obama plan.

This sound pretty damn good and surprisingly progressive for Nixon; I wonder where he was coming from with it. Of course, the Repulbican Party wouldn’t go for it now; the Republicans of today are the only thing that makes the Repulbican Party of the past look good.

While this would open up a whole new can of worms I think I’d rather back the one that recognizes (to what extent is arguable) healthcare as a citizens right.

@janbb – Although I haven’t found a link, it’s also uncannily similar to the alternative health care reform ideas that the Republicans came up with as an answer to Clintoncare. I bet some of those guys are still in office.

“FrumForum” (a conservative site run by one of GWB’s old speechwriters) likens the recent health reform package to the ideas the Republicans put forth in 1993, as well as saying it’s similar to MittRomneyCare.

I don’t know what’s happened to the republicans. It makes me sad.

It’s better than the current GOP favored plan which hinges on poor people not getting sick.

@Captain_Fantasy – The Democrats’ reform package encompasses pretty much all the major health care reform ideas that the GOP came up with this time around. (Link)

Here is what I said to someone on Facebook who couldn’t come up with a real reason to dislike it… and didn’t seem to care that Nixon would’ve favored it either:

“You should consider researching it instead of just deciding you hate it. It benefits more Americans than it hurts. Certainly more Americans that I know, anyway. I’m getting a little sick of people claiming to “love America” but that they hate/fear/loathe the government. I never would’ve said something like that even when Bush was in office. It’s a total dismissal of a system that has given you a good education and pretty much guarantees you make more money than 95% of the world. To say 30 million people don’t deserve health care? Why? Why don’t they deserve it? I haven’t seen a good explanation against it, just people that can’t be derogatory about it when explaining their position for some reason. But what is your reason to be against it?”

To which I received no reply. Thinking appears to have killed them.

The “good explanation against it” is that it will only add to the already bloated federal budget and the already bloated federal bureaucracy. Once the door to any new federal give-away is opened, it only serves to increase what people feel they are “entitled to.” Our Country is rapidly drowning in debt as both parties try to satisfy the “something for nothing” crowd. There are people in this Country who are third generation welfare recipients and know only how to milk the federal goverment for everything they can get. Our children and grandchildren will grow up thinking that the federal government is the source of all this largesse. At the end of that road is tyranny.

Ahhh, blow it out yer barracks bag, @Captain.

@dpworkin

: P

@CaptainHarley But you can’t tell me that the 30 million uninsured Americans are all lazy, that’s just crazy. Odds are they work for small businesses that can’t afford to pay into an insurance plan, or are entrepreneurs, or are artists, musicians, etc… you’re generalizing a population without looking into the actual constituents of that populace. It is about entitlement. People are entitled to life. I expect my government to educate, protect, keep me healthy, and allow me to be free enough to complain when I disagree. The federal government already has this budgeted in.

I don’t know how much the adjectives “Republican” and “Republican-backed” have to do with the plan itself. That’s especially considering how unlike today’s idea of republican it actually is. I might support the Nixon plan, but not because it’s republican. On the same token, I wouldn’t support or not support any proposal simply for its party affiliation.

From the linked document: “Efforts to control medical costs under the New Economic Policy have been Inept with encouraging success, sharply reducing the rate of inflation for health care.”

“Inept” does not make sense in context, and the capital I reinforces the notion that there is something wrong. I suspect that the intended word is “met.” This suggests that the paper was scanned in from hard copy and not well enough proofread. If that’s the case, it can’t be taken as authoritative, and typos in numbers would not be so easy to detect.

So—just a caution not to read this completely literally.

@ubersiren – My possibly-too-obscure point here is that there are tons of Republicans saying that this health care reform is the end of the world, but if they read it and compared it to what Republicans have offered in the past, it’s pretty much the same.

@CaptainHarley – To keep things to topic, do you believe that the uncannily similar health reforms that Republicans offered up in 1974 and 1993 would have similarly led to generations of the bloated welfare queens that everyone loves to hate (with a side dish of governmental tyranny)? I had (wrongly?) assumed that people who love to hate the poor (like yourself) thought that the Republicans had all the right answers.

If we had known then what we know now, we would all have been Nixon’s staunch supporters, and he probably never would have had to worry about the Democratic party. His paranoia would not have overcome him, and we’d be a lot better off.

I hate to say it, but hind sight is 20/20. Nixon, these days, would have been kicked out of the Republican party for being way too liberal.

@wundayatta Pretty much all republicans before Regan would be democrats today.

The problem I see with the Nixon plan is that it is unrealistic. It states it is going to do some wonderful things, and with no impact on taxes at all. It is entirely unclear how this would be accomplished. Other than that, it does pretty much what the bill just passed does, but the bill passed is actually funded. It doesn’t add to the deficit, it reduces it by nearly $1.5 trillion dollars over the next 20 years.

@CaptainHarley The Federal Government built, through a Public Private initiative, the Transcontinental Railroad System. They built the National Parks. They built the Interstate Highway System. They built the Air Traffic Control System. If we just looked at the front-end cost of doing those things, all would be vast investments. But where would America be today had we done none of them because gubment’s evil?

Do you believe that poor people who pay no taxes should be barred from highway and rail travel, or use of the National Parks? Do you believe that private industry would have built a free Interstate Highway System if only evil gubment had kept to it’s place, whatever little niche that may be in your mind?

Making healthcare a human right is the compassionate thing to do. It is the right thing to do. It has already been done by every other developed nation on earth to great success. We are at the bottom of developed nations in healthcare outcomes, but number one already in what we spend. In the long run, like the examples I cited, making health care a public initiative will benefit our entire nation’s well-being, because like education, decent healthcare must be available to all; rich and poor; black, brown, yellow and white; if they are to live and contribute to our nation’s wealth.

We have piled up a mountain of debt because Republicans starting with Ronald Reagan slashed taxes for the wealthiest Americans by more than 50%. We were paying our national debt from WWII down year by year till Reagan took office. He tripled the national debt in 8 short years! Every subsequent Republican has doubled it again if given 8 years to do so. Only Clinton managed to reduce the national Debt in his 8 years in office. If you really care about the National Debt, bite the bullet and support tax reform to pay for the amount of Government we actually need for the 21st century. Going back to 18th century ideas in 2010 is not going to work.

@laureth & @ETpro & at anyone else who thinks government is the answer.

NO ONE has the answers, not Democrats, not Republicans, not Libertarians. We are quickly becoming ungovernable, and the politicians are seeking the same answers that the ancient Romans tried: bread, circuses and a massive standing army. Instead of responsibly addressing the Nation’s ills ( massive debt, fiat money, a chaotic foreign policy, politicans who prefer venality to veracity, and a sizable portion of the population who suck at the government teat ), politicians follow “the party line” right or wrong, and grind out pork for their constituents regardless of whether or not it’s effective for the Nation as a whole.

Shakespere was right: the center cannot hold.

@CaptainHarley There is truth to that, my friend. It deeply concerns me too. We need a civil national debate on where government should go, and where it should stop. We need voters to wake up. There is an old Mexican proverb we all should take to heart. It says, “Take whatever you want in the world, says the Lord… And pay for it.” There are no free gifts from government, whether they come in the form of new programs or as tax cuts.

@ETpro

Agreed!

@CaptainHarley – That was Yeats, actualy. Great poem, good point.

@susanc

Thank you. I never was very good at remembering who said what. : )

@CaptainHarley I’m impressed when I can even remember that somebody said a particular quote. :-)

@ETpro

LOL! Well, some folks like to blame it on age, but I’ve ALWAYS been this way! : D

Finally you and I agree on something, @CaptainHarley.

However, government is only as good as its people. The citizens here are notoriously undereducated, apathetic, and actively hostile to real solutions, and Government (i.e., the people in government) is stymied. Most people don’t seem to know a fact from a soundbite (on either side). Let those who have solutions bring them forth.

@laureth

Heh! We probably agree on more than you suspect, Laureth. I often resort to hyperbole to make a point and that can sometimes be misleading. : )

If I had answers, I wouldn’t be hiding out in East Texas. : )

@CaptainHarley I mostly agree that there are real problems that need work more than this, but I don’t think a government ever collapsed from giving its people too much. Usually collapse comes from environmental damage and population growth, climate change, hostile neighbors, weakened trade partners, and failure to solve social problems. Either way, something we need to watch out for.

@JeanPaulSartre

Agreed, in essence. It’s usually a combination of several of those which bring governments down.

@CaptainHarley Or all of them. Poor Greenland.

@JeanPaulSartre

Uh… [ ponders whether to laugh or not ] ; )

@CaptainHarley lol – Norse Greenland suffered all of them. Honest.

Read “Collapse” did you, @JeanPaulSartre? :D

Reading for the win!

@Captain_Fantasy That’s what I have on a bumper sticker. “Republican Health Plan: Don’t get sick.”

@laureth And they’ve totally demonized David Frum for saying that…