Nixon and Ehrlichman: our failed health care system and how it all began

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

For those of you who appreciate history, I ran across this link to a bit of history about our failed heath care system and how it all began. Damn you Nixon and Ehrlichman!

The Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia provides this transcript and audio of a discussion between Richard Nixon and John Ehrlichman on February 17, 1971, from the Presidential Oral History (WhiteHouseTapes.org) WhiteHouseTapes.org Transcript + Audio Clip

Synopsis: In this conversation excerpt, domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman briefed President Nixon on what he viewed as the advantages of relying on Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) as a key component of the U.S. health care system. True HMOs at the time had been devised by health care reformers who hoped to control costs, improve patient care, and facilitate coverage for the uninsured.

For John Ehrlichman, however, the HMO idea, based upon Edgar Kaiser's profit-driven Permanente model, represented an opportunity to develop a private sector-based, profit-driven alternative to a national health care proposal being sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA).

Nixon was "not keen on" HMO medical plans, but he endorsed the idea after being told by Ehrlichman that "All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them the more money they make… the incentives run the right way." The Nixon administration soon made it the core of what would eventually become the Health Maintenance Organization and Resources Development Act of 1973.