Thursday, November 29, 2007

Socialized Healthcare Please!!

“I shall propose a sweeping new program that will assure comprehensive health-insurance protection to millions of Americans who cannot now obtain it or afford it, with vastly improved protection against catastrophic illnesses,” - Richard Nixon- State of the Union Address 1974.

The Republicans have constantly attacked the Democrats (mostly Hillary Clinton) about their socialist viewpoints on health care, you know like covering the 50 million people that do not have any coverage. Yet, Richard Nixon offered a plan on February 6, 1974 that is very similar to Hillary Clinton's plan. “It was an extremely extensive plan, as I remember, that would have given universal coverage” for health care, recalled Rudolph Penner, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and economic official in the Ford administration.

Nixon introduced his Comprehensive Health Insurance Act on Feb. 6, 1974, days after he used what would be his final State of the Union address to call for universal access to health insurance. Yet, Republicans continue to talk socialism despite their godfather Richard Nixon offering a similar plan.

A CBS News poll earlier this year found that 64 percent of Americans support federally guaranteed health insurance for all citizens. Clinton’s plan, like Nixon’s, calls for building on the existing private-sector health-care system and using government subsidies and tax credits to get all Americans under an umbrella of health coverage. Like Nixon, Clinton said her plan “is not government-run. There will be no new bureaucracy.”

Let the record show I think John Edwards has the best health care plan yet to be introduced by the candidates, but any plan is better than what we have now. I don't favor the Clinton plan that does curb the corporate profit margin in health care. We should have a government run system like every other western nation. This is not socialism, this is common sense.

Read the article on common dreams.

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