Thursday, April 24, 2008
The centerpiece of Hillary Clinton’s argument for why she should be the next president is intimately linked to the creation of national healthcare. HillaryCare, would require sweeping changes in the current healthcare model and how its delivery.
But less than 24 hours after Clinton’s 9 point victory over rival, Barack Obama, in Pennsylvania, Clinton’s Democratic surrogates in the Congress have started backing away from the possibility of making national healthcare a reality.
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) and Rep. Kendrick Meek (FL) are maneuvering to lower public expectations on the key policy issue.
According to Schumer:
“Healthcare I feel strongly about, but I am not sure that we’re ready for a major national healthcare plan.”
And Meek all but rules it out entirely:
“The money is not necessarily there right now.”
It’s worth noting that both Schumer and Meeks have voted in favor of every one of George Bush’s requests for additional funding for the Iraq war.
Should Hillary Clinton manage to become the next president, by lowering expectations seven months before the general election, Schumer and Meeks are providing Clinton with a “wiggle clause” to not deliver on her central campaign promise of national healthcare to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans in the United States.
30 Comments
+ at 7:30 am
They will do the same thing with healthcare that they will do in renegotiating NAFTA.
Nothing.
+ at 7:30 am
Sen. Charles Schumer is responsible for dragging the ghoulish Michael Mukasey out of retirement and pushing him before George Bush. Mukasey, Schumer and Feinstein are all conservative, Russian, orthodox jews who, along with Joe Lieberman, are busy doing the bidding of AIPAC. My guess is, until AIPAC signs off on national healthcare, it ain’t going to happen. Americans think they control the Federal government. Nothing could be further from reality.
+ at 7:31 am
Check out this piece Christopher, on how Obama was treated at a recent press function.
http://davedubya.com
+ at 7:34 am
It’s quite simple, really. If Hillary becomes the next president and dances around and over the creation of national heathcare, she should be impeached. We’ve had 8 years of an incompetent asshole in the White House. The American people can’t stand by and do nothing if it turns out we’ve elected another one.
+ at 7:40 am
Does anyone seriously think Hillary Clinton will deliver on national healthcare?
Let’s be serious. She had her ass handed to her on the subject back in 1993 and Congressional Republicans, toadies for Big Insurance, are just waiting to teach her another lesson if she tries to upset the apple cart.
Now we’ve got Democrats trying to throw water on the likelihood of national healthcare? If Hillary is elected, I predict she will begin her presidency as a lame duck with approval ratings in the mid-30’s.
+ at 7:51 am
The American people need to wake up.
Hillary Clinton spoon feeds you her nonsense about creating national healthcare and you buy it, hook, line and sinker. As Christopher correctly labels it, “HillaryCare” is the exact plan she tried to force down the throats of the Congress and the American people back in 1993 and failed miserably. Under HillaryCare, you will be forced to buy into the government plan and if you don’t, unpaid premiums will be identified as bad debt and reported to the 3 credit reporting agencies. In other words, HillaryCare can ruin your credit score.
It should be obvious to everyone except the Hillbots that Clinton hasn’t learned a damn thing about national healthcare from her disastrous romp with it in her husband’s first term. All Hillary Clinton has done is change its name.
+ at 7:52 am
Hillary’s not going to be president because she’s not going to win the nomination. Obama would have to drop out and he’s not going to.
+ at 7:58 am
Senator Scummer long ago lost his spine. This isn’t a surprise.
+ at 8:26 am
You’re assuming he had a spine in first place.
Chimpy: “I need more warbucks!”
Dems: “Sure thing, boss, anything you want.”
Chimpy: “I need this lunatic-in-moderate clothing confirmed.”
Dems: “Sure thing, boss, anything you want.”
+ at 8:28 am
Ka-Ching!
So Schumer is working to find ways to give the Borg Queen an out from delivering on national healthcare?
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. This is what a loyal surrogate does. Just like Indiana’s Evan Bayh was out there yesterday defending Hillary’s assertion that she would “nuke” Iran if they invaded Israel.
Someone once said “you get the government you deserve.” If the American people are stupid enough to elect Hillary Clinton president, I wash my hands of them and of this country.
+ at 8:58 am
Every poll I’ve read over the past month cites the economy and healthcare as the two issues Americans are most concerned about. Not even the Iraq war rises to this level. Whoever is elected president, if they screw up the economy or healthcare, I agree with feminazi — they should be impeached. As a nation, we don’t have anymore time to waste.
+ at 12:04 pm
Funny, there’s always money for Bush’s needless war. Schumer and Meek and Hillary Clinton couldn’t wait to sign off on more billions to squander on Iraq, but the usual handwringing begins when direct needs for U.S taxpayers are requested.
+ at 12:41 pm
I agree with Jim 100 percent.
p.s. to Larry – Dianne Fienstein isn’t Jewish, her husband is.
+ at 3:01 pm
Hillary is a Clinton.
Clintons are liars.
Hillary is a liar.
Write it 100 times on the board.
+ at 3:13 pm
Hedge now, after promising a bs plan anyhow. RENEG completely later. its so clintonesque. i can hear it now..oh i tried waaaaa, it was so hard the repubs wouldn’t let it happen…gimme a fuckin break
we need a single payer health care plan in this country – not a patchwork bunch of bullshit. We need to be at least as human as the EU and Canada. The government simply cares more about profit, capitalism than it does about our LIVES.
and i dispise shillery for just this kind of lying – anybody that believes she will deliver anything BUT crap for the people is delusional ! – she has no intention of delivering ANYTHING but crap. And she has her finger on the Bush Dog trigger. She is republican lite. Cares not a stitch for the dimocrats. Cares about one thing alone..power.
+ at 3:50 pm
Here’s the deal. If Lady Clinton couldn’t get national healthcare passed when her husband was president what makes people think she can do it as president when the country is lumbering under a $9 trillion dollar national debt? It defies reason and logic. Hear that Hillbots?
+ at 4:15 pm
Great post…..( I am taking a break from health blogging today…) I thought of you today- TREx has a great post over on his blog about Hill today on a issue that we have both talked about- the clip he has posted is amazing…check it out ( I suck at links- but his blog is on my blogroll
+ at 4:45 pm
Hillaryous is a liar. She will say whatever it takes to get elected.
Hillaryous says her healthcare plan is TeH Best and TeH reason why everyone should vote for her.
Yet her surrogates are out there saying not going to happen.
Hmm…sort of like when Hillaryous was against Free Trade with Columbia while Mark Penn was in Columbia pushing for Free Trade.
Hillaryous couldn’t get Healthcare done in the 90’s, she won’t get it done now.
Any ‘plan’ will have to go through Congress and we’ve seen how that works…it doesn’t.
Bottom line Hillaryous is a liar. She was for sniper fire before she was against. She was for NAFTA before she was against it.
She will do and say anything to get elected. Now Hillaryous is saying she won the popular vote. How? By giving herself ALL of Michigan’s votes even though Obama wasn’t on the ballot.
We saw Hillaryous run ads with Bin Laden in Penn. She will stop at nothing. Hillaryous is Republican Lite. Make that Republican Heavy. Rove’s looking for his playbook. He didn’t see Hillaryous swipe it the other day when she stopped by for advice.
+ at 5:34 pm
I know I sound like a broken record and I thank each of you for tolerating my rant but here I go again. As a mother, a woman and a feminist, I had come to the table supporting Sen. Clinton. I was thrilled to think an American woman and a Democrat no less, had a chance to president. This was the world I want my kids to grow up in. But it quickly became clear that I could not support Sen. Clinton. I don’t care that she fudged about Bosnia or even met with Richard Melon Sciafe. What troubles me about her is her ardent refusal to take responsibility for her Iraq war vote and apologize to the thousands of spouses, family members, and friends who lost sons and daughters in Iraq. Her behavior is small and petty and I don’t want to reward her with my vote on the sole basis that she has a vagina. I demand more from the man or the woman I plan to cast my vote for.
+ at 5:51 pm
I know I sound like a broken record and I thank each of you for tolerating my rant but here I go again.
Mary Beth – I love your rants. They are a thing of beauty and I look forward to reading them.
I wish I had your restraint. When I rant, I get really ugly.
+ at 6:54 pm
Politics as usual, eh Hillary? Just say anything and then have your surrogates provide you with an out so you don’t have to battle the ogres in the insurance and pharma industries. Can I say for the umpteenth time that I hate Hillary Clinton and won’t vote for her if she’s the nominee?
+ at 7:34 pm
It’s annoying how the eastcoast media keeps regurgitating the meme that Barack Obama has trouble attracting blue collar whites.
Yet the eastcoast media breezes over the fact that Hillary Clinton can’t win with college educated, upper middle class white voters.
Old, dying, rustbelt backwaters like Ohio “matter” to the eastcoast media but young, mobile states like Colorado, Virginia and Maryland are invisible.
I think the Chris Matthews, Tim Russerts, Brian Williams and Wolf Blitzer, need to leave the studio every 6 months to teach them there is a world outside New York and New Jersey.
+ at 9:39 pm
I Love You Aunt Peg.
+ at 9:41 pm
I Love You Aunt Peg.
+ at 9:45 pm
Chuck “Loves Torture” Schumer is in charge of the DSCC, a the fundraising organization to elect Democrats (or Phonycrats often) to the Senate. Schumer is fishing for HMO/Insurance company money.
Hillary Clinton won’t do jack on healthcare, unless it makes these interests more wealthy.
+ at 12:44 am
I don’t want that woman garnishing my wages for health care. Ever.
+ at 11:16 am
Proud Progressive, you said: we need a single payer health care plan in this country – not a patchwork bunch of bullshit. We need to be at least as human as the EU and Canada. The government simply cares more about profit, capitalism than it does about our LIVES.
I’d really, really, really beg to differ. I have family and friends who relocated from the US to Canada and they are DYING (some quite literally) to get back to the US where there’s actually good health coverage and health care available, unlike the socialized programs in Canada that provide shoddy care in return for taking massive amounts of tax dollars. Similar, I have a close friend that immigrated to the US from Europe several years back and cannot say enough good things about his improved healthcare experience here versus the nonsense that people have to put up with overseas where socialized programs are in place.
I absolutely do not agree that we need a single payer health care plan. First, this country was founded on principles that people did not need the government involved in every aspect of life, and that people could maintain their own lives. Second, let’s not forget that a basic principle of capitalism is the free market that encourages competition. Even in health care, competition is a good thing, as it provides many avenues to the same great quality of care that many people overseas would love to have access to. Finally, let’s consider health insurance at it’s most basic point. Health insurance came about as contingency coverage to help people pay for high dollar procedures that would otherwise be out of reach. It was not intended to blanket cover all situations – such as routine checkups – that people should be able to take care of on their own. What it comes down to in this country is that everyone seems to be expecting a handout these days; everyone wants something for free. Well, I say no thank you. I’ve worked hard for everything I have, and I don’t need the government to step in and give me something that I can provide for myself.
+ at 12:21 pm
We need a Universal Health Care System…..meaning a System that there is CARE for one and all…..The above commenter said something that really is not true- NO ONE is asking for handouts…We all should be able to have access to AFFORDABLE, Accessible , Adequate care…No one should be cutting back on food to pay for meds or insurance premiums…No one should lose their home so that their mate’s cancer treatment is paid for, and no one should have to declare bancruptcy due to medical bills….As a NURSE, Health Care is NEVER suposed to be about PROFITS….the oath we take is to DO NO HARM….Insurance companies working with the Governments blessing are causing death, criminal negligence….and often even Playing God…
Anyone who thinks otherwise has NO reality and has not talked to their neighbors or looked and talked to REAL people in a long time…
50 Million People in this Country without Healthcare…..It is like an Invisible Katrina……50 Million People should never be deemed undeserving and Invisible….and Shame on Anyone that thinks that is American to have this happening HERE….and now…
+ at 2:32 pm
As I’ve said, far too many Hillary supporters are either over-excited fanatics who think they are “making history”, or are pathetic souls who still believe the Clintons are n0t really republicans.
+ at 9:02 pm
It looks like we have a new rightist troll, “Just Say NO (to Hillary!)” in our midst. Maybe we should do some brush clearing under the bridge.