HEALTH CARE?

Transcript of taped conversation between President Richard Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman (1971) that led to the HMO act of 1973

Ehrlichman: " On the health business..."
Nixon: "Yeah"
Ehrlichman: " We have now narrowed down the vice president's
problems on this thing to one issue and that
is whether we should include these health maintenance
organizations like Edgar Kaiser's Permanent thing. The
vice president just cannot see it. We tried 15 ways from
Friday to explain it to him and then help him to
understand it. He finally says, "Well, I don't think they'll
work, but if the President thinks it's a good idea, I'll
support him a hundred percent".
Nixon: "Well, what's...what's the judgement?"
Ehrlichman: "Well, everybody else's judgement very strongly is that we
go with it."
Nixon: " All right."
Ehrlichman: " And, uh, uh, he's the one holdout that we have in the
whole office."
Nixon: "Say that I...I...I'd tell him I have doubts about it, but I
think that it's, uh, now let me ask you, now you give me
your judgement. You know I'm not to keen on any of
these damn medical programs."
Ehrlichman: "This, uh, let me, let me tell you how I am..."
Nixon: (Unclear)
Ehrlichman: "This, this is a..."
Nixon: "I don't (unclear)..."
Ehrlichman: "...private enterprise one."
Nixon: "Well, that appeals to me."
Ehrlichman: "Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit.
And the reason that he can...the reason he can do it...I
had Edgar Kaiser come in...talk to me about this and I
went into it in some depth. All the incentives are
towards less medical care, because..."
Nixon: (Unclear)
Ehrlichman: "The less care they give them, the more money
they make."
Nixon: "Fine." (Unclear)
Ehrlichman: "...and the incentives run the right way."
Nixon: "Not bad."
(Source: University of Virginia Check-February 17, 1971, 5:26 pm -
5:53 pm, Oval Office Conversation 450-23. Look for: tape rmn_e450c.)

Interesting, isn't it? These HMOs have been around screwing our lives since that conversation took place during a Republican government ran by a president and a vice president who had to resign from power. However, the damage caused was not corrected. We live, (or rather die) with it since the conversation between Richard Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman in 1971 that led to the HMO act of 1973. It's been 34 years already! And no president in this country, since, has had the courage to at least propose an alternate plan to help his constituants, mainly the poor and the middle class. The rich don't need any plan.

So here comes Hillary Clinton, running as a formidable candidate to the presidency for 2009, who has the bravery of offering a plan called "Universal Health Care" to enable us to have decent coverage. And before this plan is laid out in detail, most Americans are already against it. Apparently this plan sounds "socialist", or if you want to...even "communist!" How stupid are we? Isn't the current one administered by the HMOs a communist plan? They control our health. They tells us what we can have and what we can't. They tell us what doctors to go to. They even tell us if our illnesses are to be treated or not. Isn't that communism?
Until we remove the blindfold from our eyes, which unfortunately seems to be part of the apparel most of us permanently wear, we will never have a REAL, GOOD, HUMANE HEALTH CARE plan

I would vote for Hillary Clinton's plan if I knew we would automatically get rid of all the leaches, a.k.a HMOs. For now I am trying to find out more about her plan, without a blindfold and with an open mind. Rather than contributing to polls with complete ignorance of the facts.

Oh, yes, regarding that transcript of Nixon and Ehrlichman...are you surprised?

Note: If you are interested in more details about the Edgar Kaiser's Permanente Plan you may check it out with Google. Kaiser claims that the HMOs are clones of his original PERMANENTE PLAN.