Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 808 › Conversation 808-007
Nixon, Committee on the Health Services Industry & Stein on Medical care costs
Friday, October 27, 1972 · 11:42 AM–12:03 PM ET · Oval Office · 21 min
AI Summary
President Nixon met with members of the Committee on the Health Services Industry, along with administration officials including Herbert Stein and Donald Rumsfeld, to address the escalating costs of medical care. The discussion centered on balancing price controls with the need to maintain quality, specifically debating how to curb the proliferation of unnecessary services and the duplication of facilities without stifling the voluntary health system. Nixon emphasized the administration's goal of fostering cooperation with the medical profession to ensure federal health spending remains efficient and avoids a shift toward socialized medicine.
- Medical care costs
- Price controls
- Health care reform
- Voluntary health system
- Government spending
Audio
Transcript (AI-generated)
This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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Thank you.
uh i wanted to have this opportunity to uh
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
um um
Thank you.
Thank you.
basically the availability of so-called free or whatever you want to call it, health care for all, which is the medical profession, the hospitals, et cetera, and so on.
And on that score, I think we've got a very difficult problem.
In fact, I'm one of those former colleagues in the Congress who have a very good problem.
Thank you.
I know it's worked.
I know it's worked.
It's over control.
The thing that concerns me is that you can't get to the quality level.
You can't cycle that.
I mean, I've only heard about it in regulation before.
I've never heard about it in practice.
I've never heard about it.
I've never heard about it.
I've never heard about it.
I've never heard about it.
I've never heard about it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And we've made no attempt to deal with equality because to deal with it could be if we weren't properly, if we weren't moving properly, could impair the equality that you're talking about.
And what we have to do is to go one step further because I think there may be some bad news on the horizon in terms of the cost if people continue to money the distinction.
prices and costs because the costs are continuing to go up because we're continuing to find new ways to get people well quicker or return them to work so they can be back as productive members of society.
What we've been talking about this morning is in the long haul, both for economic stabilization and for your health strategy, that we're probably going to have to figure out some ways to deal with the cost problems to make sure that we don't have excessive costs and the duplication of services
Thank you.
We're beginning to worry about it because the progress on prices says to us that we've met the goal there.
But there's some other things that lie over the next hill that we've got to be, that we must work on it.
We're going to keep this system voluntary so that we'll be the matter for the world for their health problems as well as for our own citizens.
That's the best one.
Thank you.
I think we're going to have to develop some device to deal with that proliferation of unnecessary services, the duplication of activity that I don't think we can afford because if we get a tax on the voluntary health system,
We think there may very well be the necessity of some kind of long-term mechanism.
Excuse me, and I want to hear from John.
You remember when we had this meeting the other day, we were talking about this view of the law.
Now, when this is close to the medical scene, it seems clear that this could become a very...
here and determine whether the doctors in the hospital are providing excessive services in particular cases.
I'm sorry, but I put this in perspective.
I think we're talking about an emergency.
Alex McMahon's point, as I understand it, is that we're getting present in the control system.
His point is that as long as government is spending more and more money
Thank you.
that will encourage the conference, because of the weeks, to go the extra step, straighter, than every weekday over the meds.
That's a very good result here.
What you're really doing is putting the defense in game.
Absolutely.
That's what I always say.
In fact, my part, the very positive part of it is to make sure that the dollars that go into the health system are returned in terms of appropriate health care that the patients need to serve.
So we should probably look to that.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
We don't need to listen to my radio.
We're talking to the farmers.
NARA Description
On October 27, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and members of the Committee on the Health Services Industry, including Barbara Dunn, J. Alexander McMahon, Samuel J. Tibbitts, and James W. Haviland, as well as Herbert Stein, Donald H. Rumsfeld, James H. Cavanaugh, the White House photographer, and Stephen B. Bull, met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:42 am to 12:03 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 808-007 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 808-7
Date: October 27, 1972
Time: 11:42 am - 12:03 pm
Location: Oval Office
The President met with Barbara Dunn, J. Alexander McMahon, Samuel J. Tibbetts, James W.
Haviland, Herbert Stein, Donald H. Rumsfeld and James H. Cavanaugh. The White House
photographer and members of the press were present at the beginning of the meeting.
Introductions
-Dunn
-Haviland
-Seattle, Washington
-Tibbetts
-Southern California
-McMahon
-North Carolina
-Chicago
-American Hospital Association
-Seating arrangements
Medical care costs
-Consumer Price Index [CPI]
-Accomplishments of the Committee on the Health Services
Industry
-Future of costs
-Effect of new programs
-Hypochondria
-Administration position
-Medical care
-Example of Great Britain
-Medicare
-Medicaid
-Edward M. Kennedy proposal
-Socialism
-Economics of medical care
-Demand
-Supply
-Prices
-Quality of care
-Administration strategy
-Support of proposals
-Elliot L. Richardson
-Free health care increase
-Feasibility
-Congress
-Rumsfeld
-Goals of cost reduction
-Chart
-Cooperation
-Medical profession
-Hospital organization
-Nursing homes
-Control of prices
-Voluntary cooperation
-Over control
-Effect on quality of care
Refreshments
Medical care costs
-Quality of care
-The President’s previous meetings with presidents of the American Medical
Association [AMA] and the American Dental Association [ADA]
-Dishonesty
-Price controls
-Chart
-Prices of individual services
-Welfare
-Poll
-Duplication of services, facilities
-Proliferation of non-essential services
-Kennedy
-Dr. C. Jackson (“Dan”) Grayson, Jr.
-Duration
-Transition
Stephen B. Bull entered at an unknown time after 11:42 am.
The President’s forthcoming radio address
Bull left at an unknown time before 12:03 pm.
Medical care costs
-Price controls
-Duration
-Proliferation of non-essential services
-Duplication of services
-Voluntary health system
-Necessary services
-Professional fees
-Long term
-Recent White House meeting
-Services of doctors in hospitals
-Potential for bureaucratic process
-Government spending for medical care
-Congressional interest
-Return for money spent
-Waste
-Need for control system
-Federal guidelines
-Constituency
-Doctors
-Hospital administrators
-Voluntarism
-Labor unions
-State legislation
-Increasing interest
-Administration plan and state plans
-Types of legislation
-Administration involvement
-State controls
-Drawbacks
-Benefits of national legislation
-State compared to Federal legislatures
-Connecticut, California
-US Senate
-Cost of Living Council [COLC]
-Uniqueness of problem
Bull entered at an unknown time after 11:42 am.
The President’s forthcoming radio address
Bull left at an unknown time before 12:03 pm.
Medical care costs
-Solicitation of committee views
-Committee role in solving problem
Presentation of gifts
-Presidential seal
-Pin
-Cuff links
Connecticut
-Thomas J. Meskill
-Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
-[William Ryan]
California
-The President’s schedule
-Voting
-University of California, Los Angeles [UCLA] – University of Southern
California [USC] football game
The President’s forthcoming radio address
Dunn et al. left at 12:03 pm.Also recorded on October 27, 1972
- 808-001 11:08 AM · 21 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:08 am and 11:10 am.
- 808-002 11:10 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:10 am to 11:16 am.
- 808-003 11:16 AM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at 11:16 am.
- 808-004 11:16 AM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at 11:16 am.
- 808-005 11:16 AM · 24 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Harold Lee, White House photographer, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:16 am to 11:41 am.
- 808-006 11:41 AM · 40 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:41 am to 11:42 am.
- 032-074 12:59 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:59 pm and 1:01 pm.
- 808-008 12:59 PM · 20 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Gilroy Roberts, Clement C. Conger, unknown person(s), White House operator, Alexander P. Butterfield, Earl L. Butz, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and John D. Ehrlichman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:59 pm to 1:29 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 808-007, October 27, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/808-007 (accessed October 9, 2026).