Health care is the new education - In terms of political popularity that is.
With this comes misguided speculation concerning Nixon's take on the subject. The uninformed finger of blame points directly at our famed thirty-seventh president. This includes documentary comedy Sicko, which mistakenly portrays the current HMO system as Nixon's brainchild.
Those that claim Nixon is the cause for our health care woes cite quotations of Dick extolling the benefits of this new system circa 1970. They also point out that he signed into law the HMO Act of 1973.
However, this was not Nixon's health care plan. His original health care plan involving HMOs died. Ted Kennedy was the man behind the 1973 HMO act:
"As the author of the first HMO bill ever to pass the Senate, I find this spreading support for HMOs truly gratifying. . . HMOs have proven themselves again and again to be effective and efficient mechanisms for delivering health care of the highest quality. HMOs cut hospital utilization by an average of 20 to 25 percent compared to the fee-for-service sector. They cut total health costs from anywhere from 10 to 30 percent. And they accomplish these savings without compromising the quality of care they provide their members."
Nixon signed into law and vocally supported the act because HMOs beat the socks off of the previous fee-for-service insurance (as Kennedy points out above). However, Nixon was not going to stop at HMOs. In 1974 Nixon went on to propose the greatest change to health care in the 20th century. However, his new plan received no attention as congress was more concerned with a 3rd rate burglary - thus crowning Teddy's HMOs king.
