Today In “Dick Nixon, Liberal Hero”
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It isn’t that I feel some fervent nostalgia for the good old days of moderate Republicanism, although it’s true that the Nixon-era GOP was only microscopically to the right of today’s Democratic Party on most major policy questions – and decidedly to its left on healthcare and social spending. (Which United States president actually proposed a nationwide, single-payer healthcare system? Well, I’ve already given you the answer.)
The answer to O’Hehir’s question, of course, Harry Truman. I happen to have Richard Nixon’s health care proposal right here, and it’s distinctly to the right of the ACA. (Dig that fully privatized Medicaid!) And even this is far too generous, because it assumes that Nixon sincerely supported such a health care plan, and you’d have to be delusional to assume that. The Heritage Uncertainty Principle might be the most obvious con in history, and yet it’s amazing how many liberals line up to give it their live savings and house keys. Yes, the Republican Party was better then, but its offer on comprehensive health care was exactly the same as it is today: nothing.
I’ve observed this before, but the political universe people nostalgic for 1972 have invented is bizarre. Allegedly this was a golden age in which 1)The Democratic Party weren’t a bunch of corporate sellouts but actually supported single-payer, and 2)the last liberal president Richard Nixon totally supported single-payer and yet 3)not only did single-payer not pass nothing remotely like single-payer came close to passing and 3)when this awesome, way-left-of-Obama Democratic power controlled Congress and the White House for 4 years starting in 1977 not only did single-payer not pass but no major progressive legislation passed. At some point, it might be time to consider the possibility that premises 1 and 2 are wrong.