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Watergate's Role in the Health Overhaul

Add this to Richard M. Nixon’s résumé: Godfather of the Democrats’ big health care legislation in 2009.

Nixon, the 37th president, was known for working with Democrats on health care policy, including legislation in 1971 that opened a major government effort to fight cancer.

But his contribution to the current bill was to serve as more of a political counterforce: five of the six Democratic committee chairmen primarily responsible for writing the current health legislation were first elected to the House in 1974, riding a wave of public resentment over the Watergate scandal.
Read entire article at NYT