WI CHIP had passed in 1970?

Yes, but long term? There will be no healthcare debates in the US. ;) Oh, and Nixon gets an honour denied Franklin Roosevelt.
 
Dangerous is anything that gets the Unions behind the Republicans. This could actually lead to a long term (at least a decade or so) one party system emerging in the US. Though, I wonder if this wouldn't cause the party reversal to reverse again, and end up with the parties as they're supposed to be: Republicans that are economically and socially liberal, Democrats that are economically and socially conservative.
 
You would have had to somehow get rid of Watergate to have Nixon's scheme pass, which would have caused all sorts of other changes. Nixon's scheme, in any case, would likely have made the economic woes of the 1970s far worse than what they were, though likely the next President (who would not have been Carter) would have blamed for it.
 
Michandre: Excepting the Carter interlude, the GOP IOTL was in power for a quarter-century, 1968-76, 1980-92. That was without UHC.

How would the US economy bear the burden of CHIP, and would a Democratic or Republican President try to privatize it by introducing the OTL HMO system or something similar?

MRW: I've discussed consequences in the "No Watergate" thread, but we didn't discuss CHIP at all.
 
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Dangerous is anything that gets the Unions behind the Republicans.

The unions lobbied against CHIP first and foremost because they saw a Kennedy in the White House in '76, and thought they could get something like single-payer or the NHS introduced under a Kennedy Presidency. Nixon passing CHIP in 1970 is probably going to tear some conservative unions away from the AFL-CIO (Teamsters, for sure), but I don't think it's going to put the entire union block in the GOP fold because of the history of that party being generally anti-union and pro-business.

Maybe another schism in the U.S. union movement? With George Meany leading the AFL-CIO and a Walter Reuther leading a more liberal union federation?
 
TNF: They saw Ted in the WH after Chap? I'd like to know what those union leaders were smoking. They liked Ted, but hated the other two brothers with a passion.
 
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TNF: They saw Ted in the WH after Chap? I'd like to know what those union leaders were smoking. They liked Ted, but hated the other two brothers with a passion.

Specifically, they saw a Democrat back in the White House in 1976, and were hoping and praying for Teddy because he had their back on nearly every (if not every) issue that mattered to unions. Of course, the unions didn't have a good history with JFK and RFK as it was because of their investigations into organized labor, organized crime, and communists in organized labor in the fifties, IIRC.

Basically, the logic was: CHIP is good, but we can get something far better under a Democrat.
 
In 1970, Nixon proposed the Comprehensive Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which would provide universal coverage through employer mandates. WI Ted Kennedy (who killed UHC thirty years before calling it the "fight of his life") had agreed and it had passed?
Errr.... the very link you give says
Kennedy and Nixon Reach a Compromise

In a moment of bi-partisan cooperation, Nixon’s staunch foe, Ted Kennedy, agreed to a compromise deal and prepared to work to get the health care legislation passed through congress. However, the brewing Watergate scandal soon took over the headlines and distracted the President from pushing through with this initiative. With the President unable to continue to rally support, the efforts of the Unions, who hoped for a better deal under a new presidential administration, succeeded in derailing the Nixon-Kennedy health care bill.

So I doubt that your PoD will help....
 
The Union mentality of "I've-got-mine, Jack" when it came to healthcare was an issue too.

How would the US economy bear the burden of CHIP
Any Universal Program (and I don't consider the Public Option UHC; I think its just a safety blankets liberals use since they know they can't get a true national health now since they were hit so hard by the age of Reagan) generally cuts GDP spent on healthcare coverage (for example, I think the US currently pays 17 percent of its GDP to healthcare and that cost is rising, whereas universal system nations pay something like 10 percent or less.
I don't know how comprehensive the proposal was since I haven't investigated much into it, but if it is comprehensive so as to plug those holes that hemorrhage money in the current system, and with preventative treatment it would bring, it could well end up saving the US money. But given the sort of inconsistent Nixon economic policies that were tried to fix the economy in the 1970's, that thought could go out the window in the mess.

and would a Democratic or Republican President try to privatize it by introducing the OTL HMO system or something similar?
They might (probably a Conservative), but how it goes would depend on its popularity.
 
TNF: They had no luck with the SoDems Carter & Clinton in that regard.

They tried to push Carter on health care reform, but Carter's presidency imploded not too long after it started, and Clinton lost any credibility he had with the labor movement when he pushed for NAFTA. Had the circumstances been right and they'd gotten an explicitly pro-labor Democrat in the White House (i.e. someone like EMK or even Henry Jackson, for that matter), they might have made better inroads at getting what they wanted.

Of course, the average union leader in 1970 is used to the general consensus on the American welfare state that had existed for nearly forty years, and doesn't see it changing anytime soon. The average union leader in 1990 has an extremely different viewpoint, which is why much of the movement (until as of late, under the leadership of Rich Trumka) has settled for the 'anything-is-better-than-nothing' politics of the Democratic Party as of late.
 
Long-term, I think that healthcare being off the table might prevent the "Reagan Revolution" in the US. No one's going to critique Nixon, because domestically he governed as a liberal, almost a Democrat IOTL. I cannot see any of Nixon's OTL Democratic opponents in '68 or '72 (except McCarthy or McGovern) being dissatisfied with CHIP.
 
Any Universal Program generally cuts GDP spent on healthcare coverage (for example, I think the US currently pays 17 percent of its GDP to healthcare and that cost is rising, whereas universal system nations pay something like 10 percent or less.

This is more or less true, so the decreasing proportion of money wasted on health could go into other areas, especially during the economically troubled 70s.
 
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