One of the usual myths often recited to claim that pushing for Medicare for All is counterproductive right now is that “We’ve been trying for 60 years and have never gotten anywhere.”

This is basically false. There has been one and only one major attempt to institute national health insurance in this country, and that was by Harry Truman in 1948. Since that time no President has supported it and no very large chance has arisen for its passage.

Did Lyndon Johnson try for Medicare for All? No. He tried for Medicare for the Elderly, and got it. To say that he actually devoted any effort to pushing for national health care is false. He may have had a proposal written in some back room that never saw the light of day (a rumor that I’ve been unable to confirm or refute), but it sure as hell was never a major goal.

Did Bill Clinton try for Medicare for All? Despite the erroneous statements of some media organizations, the managed care plan he proposed was nothing like single payer. Yes, it was an ambitious restructuring of the health care sector, but it still relied on the same basic for-profit, employer based health insurance model. Worse, it was untested.

You can read all about it in this informative document by the Kaiser Family Foundation. There is no mention of any effort to create a single payer plan except by Truman.

Quite interestingly, there was a plan by none other than Richard Nixon that in some respects resembles what the Democrats are now proposing, as Paul Krugman has also written. This wasn’t a single payer proposal, but not only was it desirable, on the whole it was actually better than what we’re working with now. Krugman writes:

Given the combination of G.O.P. extremism and corporate power, it’s now doubtful whether health reform, even if we get it — which is by no means certain — will be anywhere near as good as Nixon’s proposal, even though Democrats control the White House and have a large Congressional majority.

It’s a sad reflection on our society today that a Republican President of a bygone era proposed requiring all employers to provide health insurance for their employees, not just large employers but even the small employers that will be exempted from current bills. Even worse is that the Republican President who trumped current Democratic proposals happened to be Tricky Dick.

During that period in history, there was also someone who proposed a single payer plan, but it wasn’t the President and so the plan never had much chance of success. That someone was Ted Kennedy. It had no cost sharing by consumers, meaning no co-pays of the type we have to deal with today or even in countries like Switzerland, and was financed through payroll taxes. Kennedy later deeply regretted not having compromised with Nixon on a national health proposal. Given the sorry outcome for the next generation, I can certainly understand why.

But the fact remains that no President has supported single payer since Harry Truman.