State of the Union AddressesNixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous)
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State of the Union Addresses
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Turning now to the rest of the agenda for 1974, the time is at hand this
year to bring comprehensive, high quality health care within the reach of
every American. 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. This will be a plan that maintains the high
standards of quality in America's health care. And it will not require
additional taxes.
Now, I recognize that other plans have been put forward that would cost $80
billion or even $100 billion and that would put our whole health care
system under the heavy hand of the Federal Government. This is the wrong
approach. This has been tried abroad, and it has failed. It is not the way
we do things here in America. This kind of plan would threaten the quality
of care provided by our whole health care system. The right way is one that
builds on the strengths of the present system and one that does not destroy
those strengths, one based on partnership, not paternalism. Most important
of all, let us keep this as the guiding principle of our health programs.
Government has a great role to play, but we must always make sure that our
doctors will be working for their patients and not for the Federal
Government.
Many of you will recall that in my State of the Union Address 3 years ago,
I commented that "Most Americans today are simply fed up with government at
all levels," and I recommended a sweeping set of proposals to revitalize
State and local governments, to make them more responsive to the people
they serve. I can report to you today that as a result of revenue sharing
passed by the Congress, and other measures, we have made progress toward
that goal. After 40 years of moving power from the States and the
communities to Washington, D.C., we have begun moving power back from
Washington to the States and communities and, most important, to the people
of America.
In this session of the Congress, I believe we are near the breakthrough
point on efforts which I have suggested, proposals to let people themselves
make their own decisions for their own communities and, in particular, on
those to provide broad new flexibility in Federal aid for community
development, for economic development, for education. And I look forward to
working with the Congress, with members of both parties in resolving
whatever remaining differences we have in this legislation so that we can
make available nearly $5 1/2 billion to our States and localities to use
not for what a Federal bureaucrat may want, but for what their own people
in those communities want. The decision should be theirs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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