I believe that Nixon's HMOs did solve the problem they were aimed at.
A lot of people without healthcare (especially those people who did not have union jobs) got it. America became healthier. And to bang on my theme in the prior post: American business had not stepped up and solved that problem.
What pisses me off is that you cannot effectively sue doctors who are part of HMOs. Incompetent doctors who make people suffer and die have legal protection to keep doing what they do.
My mother was (mis)treated by such a doctor. It turned out that the doctor had a long history of incompetence. He would not have been a doctor by the time my mother saw him if he had not been protected by the HMO and by the business-friendly federal laws.