(This comes to us by way of Sarah at Corrente.) I know what your first reaction will be: If Bill Clinton likes single-payer (national health insurance), then why didn't he shoot for that when he was president? Because the situation was different then.Clinton met with various bloggers representing the big sites -- quite a few of whom went after his wife viciously in 2008. The Last Good President has a talent for forgiveness which mere mortals, such as myself, cannot mirror. Clinton explained to them why single-payer is a different matter in Obama's day. This comes from the NYT:
"He’s got a better Congress, a more receptive climate," Mr. Clinton said in a recent interview. "He also has, frankly, a better — at least more politically saleable — set of proposals."
Mr. Clinton said that as he looked at the matter in 1993 he believed that he had two options for providing universal coverage: either a tax increase or an employer mandate. Since he had already expended a lot of political capital on a deficit-reduction plan that included tax increases as well as spending cuts, he said he had to rely on the employer mandate.Yeah, but Obama has. That's the problem. The guy that the Cheetoheads championed -- their Lightbringer, their Kwisatz Haderach, the One Who Would Solve All Things -- is against single-payer.
“If you had an employer mandate, then you could leave the small businesses out or come up with enough revenues to subsidize the smaller employers — and since we couldn’t raise taxes, having an employer mandate guaranteed that the National Federation of Independent Businesses would join with the insurance companies,” he said. “Now they don’t have to have an employer mandate, because they can offer buy-ins. I hope they won’t give up on this public option.”
On the other hand, Joseph Antos, a health care expert at the American Enterprise Institute, faulted Mr. Clinton’s analysis. “I take it that President Clinton thinks we don’t have to pay for a big expansion today,” Mr. Antos said. “The Blue Dog Democrats and the Republicans disagree, and President Obama also seems to disagree.”Birds of a feather, Obots. Look at the company your "Lightbringer" keeps.
8 comments:
AMERICA’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY!
It’s official. America and the World are now in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. A World EPIDEMIC with potential catastrophic consequences for ALL of the American people. The first PANDEMIC in 41 years. And WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES will have to face this PANDEMIC with the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed World.
STAND READY AMERICA TO SEIZE CONTROL OF YOUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
We spend over twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as any other country in the World. And Individual American spend about ten times as much out of pocket on healthcare as any other people in the World. All because of GREED! And the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare system in America.
And while all this is going on, some members of congress seem mostly concern about how to protect the corporate PROFITS! of our GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT NATIONAL DISGRACE. A PRIVATE FOR PROFIT DISGRACE that is in fact, totally valueless to the public health. And a detriment to national security, public safety, and the public health.
Progressive democrats and others should stand firm in their demand for a robust public option for all Americans, with all of the minimum requirements progressive democrats demanded. If congress can not pass a robust public option with at least 51 votes and all robust minimum requirements, congress should immediately move to scrap healthcare reform and demand that President Obama declare a state of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY! Seizing and replacing all PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance plans with the immediate implementation of National Healthcare for all Americans under the provisions of HR676 (A Single-payer National Healthcare Plan For All).
Coverage can begin immediately through our current medicare system. With immediate expansion through recruitment of displaced workers from the canceled private sector insurance industry. Funding can also begin immediately by substitution of payroll deductions for private insurance plans with payroll deductions for the national healthcare plan. This is what the vast majority of the American people want. And this is what all objective experts unanimously agree would be the best, and most cost effective for the American people and our economy.
In Mexico on average people who received medical care for A-H1N1 (Swine Flu) with in 3 days survived. People who did not receive medical care until 7 days or more died. This has been the same results in the US. But 50 million Americans don’t even have any healthcare coverage. And at least 200 million of you with insurance could not get in to see your private insurance plans doctors in 2 or 3 days, even if your life depended on it. WHICH IT DOES!
Contact congress and your representatives NOW! AND SPREAD THE WORD!
God Bless You
Jacksmith – WORKING CLASS
Do you folks really believe anything Bill Clinton says? He should be completely tuned out. In the words of the immortal George Bush, "Fool me once, shame on. . . you?. . . Because you see if you fool me you can't fool me again."
The great Bill Clinton. That's the same guy who sent your jobs to China and Mexico, saying you could get rich doing "service". Guess he was right about that. Same kind of service the poor Russians have to do. That's the same guy who "reformed" the financial regulatory scheme, allowing Goldman Sachs to eat your children. Dude, how's your 401k? Bill Clinton, such a wise, wise leader. He did to you what he did to Monica.
In May 2008, perhaps earlier, the Clinton's liquidated all their stocks, converting everything to cash, purportedly in an effort to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. At that time the Dow was trading at around 13500. One year later, it was at about 8000with virtually every stock taking a huge hit. They're freaking brilliant!! Who says honesty doesn't pay.
One day people on the left and the right will wake up and realize both parties are playing them. Clinton was a better Republican than Bush, but you all still follow him around like he's Elvis.
The purpose of the "pandemic" is to destroy the system. Once it's in shatters this winter, they'll rebuild it "closer to their heart's desire".
Ah, that evil bastard Clinton! He PERSONALLY transported American jobs overseas.
Miguel, in previous posts, I've debunked your lie about Clinton's responsibility for regulation reform.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2008/09/hard-times-blame-clinton.html
Here's what I said then:
* * *
The prog party line -- as explicated by this unconscionable piece of filth, written by a liar named Ralph Brauer -- holds that Bill Clinton set the crisis in motion when he (supposedly) replaced the FDR-era Glass-Steigel Act. That act disallowed banks from getting involved with insurance and stock brokerage services.
Banks grew to dislike this "separation of powers." Why? Because in boom times, people put their money in stocks, while in hard times, people put cash into savings accounts. Banks wanted to get in on both rackets.
In 1998, Travelers (a really big insurance and financial services company) bought Citibank (a really big bank). This was not legal. A lot of helpful people in Congress decided to change the law. You may decide for yourself whether campaign contributions affected that decision.
Thus was born the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which replaced Glass-Steagall. A growing number of economists believe that this Act helped to create the current subprime crisis, because it allowed bad loans to be packaged and sold in a global game of three-card monte.
Here's the part that the the progs won't tell you about: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed by a veto-proof majority in a Republican-controlled Congress.
In spite of that inconvenient fact of history, Brauer writes:
Bill Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall.
See? This proves what I've said for months -- the difference between liberals (such as myself) and progressives is that progressives lie. Progressives cannot say "Hi!" without lying.
When forced to confront the inconvenient fact that I have just now put into boldfaced letters, the progs retreat to a more weasle-like position: "Yeah, well, Bill Clinton did nothing to fight it." Anglachel digs up contemporary reports to demonstrate that, in fact, he did.
* * *
Miguel, you're just another lying prog.
Thanks, Joseph, for your thoughtful comment. You've shamed me. I feel so bad.
Here's another lie: a total of 182 Democrats voted for Gramm-Leach. Guess Clinton had no smarm left in the tank to persuade them. He could have pulled rank. Could have retaliated against them. Bet Lyndon Johnson would have known what to do. Never heard Clinton did anything of the sort though. Maybe he bravely wrote in his memoirs that he was against it.
Seems to me too that if a president is against something, he should go ahead and veto it. If they override his veto, then history knows who's responsible. He of course didn't do that either.
Such grand gestures of principle might have endangered his post-presidency ex post-facto $100,000 per speech bribes. But can you blame him, with all those legal bills arising from his right to choose. . . an unattractive Israeli spy barely out of her teens to help him in the Oval office. ("A foreign government has recorded our conversations...)
Okay, let me stop lying now. Let me magnanimously list some other Clinton accomplishments:
NAFTA
Yugoslavia and the Goebbels-esque propaganda justifying it
Welfare "reform"
The perpetual bombing of Iraq and the murder of 500,000 children ("worth it" according to Albright)
Social Security trust fund used to create a "surplus".
The Larry Summers / Bob Rubin show
What a record. Brings tears to your eyes from its brilliance.
Seems to me too that if a president is against something, he should go ahead and veto it. If they override his veto, then history knows who's responsible. He of course didn't do that either.
I guess you don't understand what "passed by a veto-proof majority" means.
an unattractive Israeli spy barely out of her teens to help him in the Oval office
Tin foil, meet head.
NAFTA
If not for Bill, it would have been far worse than it was. Even so, no one has yet proven it was a net loss for the US.
Yugoslavia and the Goebbels-esque propaganda justifying it
The people there cried out to the UN to help, it couldn't do the job, so it got NATO to do it, which overthrew a dictator, ended the genocide, then pulled out and left the goverment in the hands of the people?
Welfare "reform"
Which got 80% of the people off welfare and into the workforce, and reduced poverty on top of that.
The perpetual bombing of Iraq and the murder of 500,000 children ("worth it" according to Albright)
You mean, the occasional bombing of banned facilities under internationally-imposed sanctions, and civilian deaths resulting from Saddam's trying to rebuild those facilities and divert money from the Oil-for-Food program.
Social Security trust fund used to create a "surplus".
You mean, the raising of taxes on the wealthy to create the surplus.
As Joe said, you're just another lying prog.
Sergei Rostov
Oh, I see I missed one:
Larry Summers Robert Rubin
Bill sought economic advice from a lot of different people, and obviously took the best of it and made it work (not surprising; he was a Rhodes Scholar in Economics), since he cut the debt, turned deficits to surpluses, cut poverty, cut unemployment, created at least 22 million net jobs, and raised net wages.
Sergei Rostov
Oh, I should note that yes, the SSTF surplus was included in some charts on the budget surplus (mostly those which also included SS as a federal outlay, so this is fair accounting), however, even without that, there was still a budget surplus.
Further, I should also note that the surpluses were created not only by raising taxes on the wealthy, but by cutting goverment waste (for example, a 1-year no-extra-cost internal audit resulted in cutting $108 billion in waste by itself from the budget starting in 1994).
Sergei Rostov
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