Jimmy Carter: Ted Kennedy Cost America National Health Insurance Decades Ago

WASHINGTON — Former President Jimmy Carter says Americans could have had comprehensive health care coverage decades ago if Sen. Edward M. Kennedy hadn't blocked a plan Carter had proposed.

Carter revisited the old spat in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" to be aired Sunday. Portions of the interview, prompted by the publication of his White House diary, were posted on the program's website Thursday.

"The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed," Carter said in the interview. "It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill."

Carter cast his Democratic rival as spiteful. "He did not want to see me have a major success in that realm of life," Carter said.

The Massachusetts senator unsuccessfully challenged Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination. Carter then lost to Republican Ronald Reagan.

Kennedy, who made health care reform a prized cause, died in August 2009 from brain cancer.

The disagreement over health care is noted in Carter's latest book, "White House Diary." According to a "60 Minutes" statement, Carter wrote at the time: "Kennedy continuing his irresponsible and abusive attitude, immediately condemning our health plan. He couldnt get five votes for his plan."

Kennedy and Carter had competing health care reform plans while Carter was president. Kennedy favored a more comprehensive approach that would have insured all Americans against health care costs regardless of age or income. Carter backed a more moderate proposal that would have been phased in over several years.

In his 2009 memoir, "True Compass," Kennedy blamed Carter for dragging his feet on health care and wrote that Carter viewed his health care efforts as a platform to challenge his presidency.

"If that's why he slowed things down, then he made a poor political calculation," Kennedy wrote. "If we had passed comprehensive national health insurance together, it would have been a huge victory for Carter."

When asked in interviews about his biggest regret as a senator, Kennedy often recalled his failure to make a deal to pass President Richard Nixon's sweeping health care proposal in the early 1970s. Kennedy said that at the time he did not think it went far enough.

Comments

[Adam616]

02:12 AM on 11/10/2010

Picking a fight with a dead guy. Way to go, Jimmy.

[conservicide]

01:03 PM on 10/03/2010

So sad that politicians can make the lives of citizens into a political volleyball. Goes to show you how far removed they are from the reality of regular human beings that do actual work for a living.

[Lorianne]

01:32 PM on 09/19/2010

Obama Mocks Public Option Supporters

[Quagmiregiggity]

11:30 PM on 09/18/2010

If Lindsey Lohan were in the Jimmy Carter UCLA Medical Center, she would have been there 444 days...OH!

[PunDyt]

04:11 PM on 09/18/2010

Jimmy takes a swipe at Teddie's corpse, knows Teddie won't fight back. Still blames Teddie for the 1980 convention floor fight and loss to Reagan. A bitter Jimmy, lo these 30 years later. Looks kinda sad to hear him speak in if's, woulda's and coulda's ...

[williamg]

12:15 PM on 09/18/2010

Kennedy made the same mistakes the far-left progressives almost made during the health care debate: he demanded a plan and refused to sign on to any compromise -- and the country ended up with nothing.

Nixon offered an employer-mandate, and Kennedy and the AFL CIO demanded single payer. We got NOTHING.

Carter offered his plan and Kennedy refused. We got nothing.

So for the last 30-40 years there has been no plan. Just imagine if an employer-mandate was put in place back then? Think of how it could have expanded over time? Medicare started off with 1 million. Now it has 50 million enrolled.

But there wasn't a plan in place, because he refused compromise. And we ended up with nothing.

[Yaxchibonam]

03:42 PM on 09/18/2010

Couldn't have said it any better! And these are the so-called GOOD guys!

[jefe]

07:29 AM on 09/18/2010

Sounds to me like they both screwed over the American people because of their egos.

[GOODREASON]

01:40 AM on 09/18/2010

Good for Carter, but how many times has Roslyn had to listen to this ... anyway, the Kennedy's were and are overrated, and now where are they? They do not want to touch toxic Obama, with his falling polls, even after they helped him get elected. It's the old story, everything is like a game of chess in politics.

[cabot]

11:34 AM on 09/18/2010

Who cares about the Kennedys anyway, they are just like all families, some good , some bad, some a mixture of both. Let them be, they did a lot of bad things but also a couple good things, I think, maybe??????

[taylorskid]

07:45 AM on 09/19/2010

LOL! I think what you fail to grasp is that the democrats are not brain-dead voters. We tend to disagree on many issues. We don't speak with one voice, which is a positive and a negative. But make no mistake about it: the Democratic Party, with all its ills, represents the American people far better than the GOP. The DP has been doing it for years and has history of legislation to proove it.

[wdw505]

01:11 AM on 09/18/2010

too funny one se.nile old man griping about another sen.ile old man.......at least he picks on someone that will not fig.ht him too much

[separatingwheatfromchaff]

03:01 PM on 09/18/2010

Both of these men poured their heart and soul into their work,who are you to trash them?

[wdw505]

01:10 AM on 09/18/2010

too funny one senile old man griping about another senile old man.......at least he picks on someone that will not fight him too much

[cabot]

11:35 AM on 09/18/2010

Please leave Mitch McConnell and Jim McCain out of this debate!....:)

[WarriorLemming]

01:00 AM on 09/18/2010

Damn! Leave egos at the door, please! It doesn't matter what version is right--the American people LOST!

[toocoldout]

12:03 AM on 09/18/2010

Is he saying the U.S. would have had national health care for over 30 years and that millions of lives would have been saved? Why is he being so controversial?

[turneriver]

11:44 PM on 09/17/2010

Maybe I'm reading more into this than is there, but it appears that Kennedy could have gotten comprehensive health care reform in the early 70's with nixon, and later with carter, but blew them both off. If so, then he's not the patron saint of health care reform he was painted to be, but rather the guy who delayed this reform which we still don''t have even today.

[toocoldout]

12:01 AM on 09/18/2010

What do you mean we don't have it today? Obama passed health care and liberals still aren't happy?

[wdw505]

01:12 AM on 09/18/2010

too funny

[WarriorLemming]

01:14 AM on 09/18/2010

"Comprehensive" You overlooked, missed or choice to ignore the word, "comprehensive", toocoldout.....it makes the world of difference.

[Martel LXIV]

12:59 AM on 09/18/2010

What we have today is only one small step toward reform of a bloated out of control private health care system. Unfortunately that one small step was taken by sidestepping real reform which has to be addressed in order to control AND REDUCE costs. Without doing that the private health care system in this country will make the Great Depression look like the party of the century and cause the current economic collapse to be a fond memory.

But, oooh, be afraid! The socialist/commies are coming with death panels!!! OOOOOH, it's scary! Quick, run away and buy teabags for your hat so people will admire and respect you!

This is the country with the most expensive health care ponzi scheme ever devised. A country where people would rather fork over twice as much money for health care than other nations in the developed world and expect half the results. All in the name of capitalism. (Capitalism was enshrined in the Constitution as the entire purpose of the nation but the founders just forgot to use the word. It was an oversight.)

In our defense, we hold first place among all the countries of the world in percentage of the population afraid of their own shadows, who live in continuous fear of anything they're told they should fear and hate. We're quick, though. We only have to be told to be afraid or to hate once, and we start screaming for our guns and our nukes.

[wdw505]

01:14 AM on 09/18/2010

my health care coverage is just fine

[williamg]

12:09 PM on 09/18/2010

Facts:

--50 million people do NOT have health insurance.

--This reform will cover 32 million of them

--The average American will receive subsidies that will cover 70% of their premiums (paid for mostly by the wealthy).



You can get caught up in your own emotional argument, but this is monumental legislation. You can act as if that is a bad thing, but the numbers don't lie. People will be helped -- tremendously.

[devildog09]

11:43 PM on 09/17/2010

No Jimmy, you initiative failed becasue you were a clown and no one took you seriously when you were president. It's hard to get much traction on new federal programs when the misery factor was so high. Rather like now, actually

[indiawilkes]

10:53 PM on 09/17/2010

what's the point in ripping off the scab at this point?

[GOODREASON]

01:44 AM on 09/18/2010

That's politics. Obama does it practically every day reminding us of his inherited woes.

[Yaxchibonam]

03:50 PM on 09/18/2010

It's that legacy thang. I'm starting to polish mine up just in case the unexpected happens. What about you?