2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHow Hillary undermined All Single Payer Advocates including Bernie Sanders and still is
Basically she believed that the money the insurance industry would spend to defeat it made it a battle not worth fighting in 1993. How is what she says today any different?
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Im not sure who arranged the meeting to be honest I think there was pressure to have the meeting from Sanders [then a member of Congress] but also from [civil rights leader] Jesse Jackson, David Himmelstein, who today is a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, told The Intercept. What I know is we got a call from Ira Magaziners office. Ira Magaziner was Hillarys right-hand man [in the health reform debate]. Magaziner wanted the single-payer advocates to have their say with the first lady.
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Towards the end of the session after we had gone back and forth with Mrs. Clinton about the details and the advantages and some of the questions she had about it, she said, You make a very convincing case that single-payer would be a good reform, but is there any force on the face of the earth that would counter the money the insurance industry would spend to defeat it?
Himmelstein said he replied that the presidential bully pulpit would be the counterweight an argument that did not end up convincing Clinton of the political feasibility.
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/16/in-1993-meeting-hillary-clinton-acknowledged-convincing-case-for-single-payer/
She was for Single Payer but seems to have decided: "if you can't beat them...."
These words were later cited by business lobbyists in New York state earlier this year to argue that if even Hillary Clinton opposed single-payer, why should New York adopt it?
Hillary Clintons paid speech circuit came to an end as her campaign revved up. But for her husband, with whom she shares a bank account, it hasnt. This summer, he was the keynote speaker at Americas Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry group that poured almost $100 million into trying to defeat health care reforms during the fight over the Affordable Care Act.
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/13/hillary-clinton-single-payer/
artyteacher
(598 posts)The single payer unicorn pursuers have made modest progress difficult.
coyote
(1,561 posts)That´s a Clinton supporter for ya..."No, we can't!!!"....inspiring no hope and stagnation wherever they go.
appalachiablue
(41,168 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)is the ONLY way to make "modest progress".
And any progress made under the trivially small plan HRC did finally present would have been unnoticeable.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)being forced to use for profit private health insurance would have been modest progress. Passing a law making private health insurance non-profit like it used to be would have been modest progress. Yet, I have not heard Hillary offer either of these options for "modest progress".
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Really, you should. If you understood the historical significance and meaning of the creature, you might stop using it to ridicule Bernard Sanders.
You don't sound very arty or teacher-like to me.
pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)And that means they don't recognize FACTS. . . . so talking about "historical significance" is wasted keystrokes.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)But I am just finishing my coffee and have to call my 'retirement specialist' about IRA MRDs, sales tax on my business, Keogh contribution max.. Ugh! I can barely face it.
Unicorns are just so much easier.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)...the English, and all the other people in the world who HAVE single payer, have had it for a long time and find it very successful, that what they have is a "unicorn"?
No, dear, what they have is REAL. Insurance company fairy beings are NOT real. And if you ever get hurt or sick, I hope you are traveling in those countries when it happens, because they will take care of you, gratis for nothing, while here, they will charge you an arm and a leg for coverage, and then drag you into a bureaucratic nightmare trying to deny you that coverage. That's the reality, little one. Insurance company "unicorns" are like Santa Claus, and you know we talked about that, didn't we? Santa Claus is not real. Insurance company 'talking points' are not real. Single payer does cost you, but only just a small payment. The insurance companies cost you a lot more. It's called gouging and profiteering and hitting you when you're down, and it's very real, and it's not nice at all. Go to sleep now, darling, and I hope you wake up to a president who cares about all of us and who believes that health care is a right.
boobooday
(7,869 posts)PatrickforO
(14,586 posts)Single payer healthcare IS a right.
Take profit out of the equation. Take the 'who is going to pay what portion of the cost' bureaucracy out of it.
If you're sick you shouldn't have to worry about anything but getting treatment. You should not have to visit with financial people BEFORE treatment.
Duval
(4,280 posts)NJCher
(35,706 posts)So glad you're here.
Cher
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Canadian border. Needless to say about half my campers were Canadians. Because there are the usual injuries in campgrounds, I kept first aid supplies in my trailer and called the Forest Rangers for first response in case of an injury beyond a band aid, who made decisions like if we needed to call a med vac ambulance helicopter to go to a hospital, which was incidentally 100 miles away.
The Canadians refused any care other than the band aid. Instead they preferred to transport their injured back to Canada, if they could. I asked them why and they told me that they could get the same care in Canada and it wouldn't cost them anything. The few who had to be treated on this side of the border really were shocked at the bill when they got it.
farleftlib
(2,125 posts)Single payer is not unicorns and rainbows. The US is way behind the rest of the world in providing care for its citizens and they'd love for us to believe "it could never happen here."
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)(btw: it is = it's)
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)Would that be the same ACA that the Republican Congress has tried to repeal 40 times, or is that 60 times by now?
Talk about people that live in a delusional world. The only way to get health care reform past the Republicans is to be able to prove to the American public, and the Republicans, that the system would save money and reduce expenditures by families, you can't do that with the ACA. That's the only way you can force the Republicans hand.
pberq
(2,950 posts)Only a unicorn would want to eliminate administrative waste and monopoly profits in the healthcare system.
http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2016/01/chelsea-clinton-is-confused-about-single-payer.html
In all, Senator Sanders proposal would save us well over $500 billion in the first year with growing savings thereafter while the single-payer agency restrains the continuing accumulation of monopolistic profit and bureaucratic bloat. These savings would allow us to provide access to health care to the millions who remain without insurance, and the millions more who remain underinsured by policies with such large deductibles or cost-sharing that they remain vulnerable to financial ruin.
For the privilege of receiving inadequate health insurance through private companies, Americans can expect over the next decade to pay over $13 trillion in, what amounts to, private taxes imposed by insurers on behalf of the government that mandates that we have health insurance. Add to this, another $5 trillion that under the Clinton health program we can expect to pay in out-of-pocket spending for medical costs not covered by health insurance. Instead, with Sanders single payer plan, we would save enough in reduced administrative waste and monopoly profits that we could cover everyones medical needs and still take home savings of over $1,700 per person per year for the next decade.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/what-is-single-payer
What is Single Payer?
Single-payer national health insurance, also known as Medicare for all, is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health care financing, but the delivery of care remains largely in private hands. Under a single-payer system, all residents of the U.S. would be covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs.
The program would be funded by the savings obtained from replacing todays inefficient, profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer, and by modest new taxes based on ability to pay. Premiums would disappear; 95 percent of all households would save money. Patients would no longer face financial barriers to care such as co-pays and deductibles, and would regain free choice of doctor and hospital. Doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)That's like ending segregation for one person at a time.
Anyone who argues for "modest progress" or "incremental change" is a con artist. Hasn't ever happened. Never will.
earthshine
(1,642 posts)along with increasing premiums, deductibles, and insurance company profits.
Shadowflash
(1,536 posts)Anything that leaves the payment and medical decisions up to a company who's FIRST priority is profit and stockholder payments is not progressing anything.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Medicare for All.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)Yet, she who was not even elected to a public office at that time tries to blame Bernie.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)freebrew
(1,917 posts)in the 90s led to the insurance companies increasing their premiums 30% and up.
Healthcare costs exploded in the 90s as the insurance industry was given the OK
to do almost anything they wanted. It continued into *'s term and is still going on.
Thanks to the 3 dimensional chess thing.
Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)... to attack someone on something that has been her strength - her lifelong commitment to achieving universal healthcare in the United States.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)Single payer is not the only model to achieve universal healthcare.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And your candidate will never challenge them
Healthcare cannot be universal AND a commodity sold for profit.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)Clinton was for single payer in theory but thought it too difficult politically.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)So we know nonsense when we see it.
It is absurd to say the USA cannot have medicare for all single payer just because the insurance industry is holding us hostage. We fully intend to have Medicare For All.
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)Most countries that have universal healthcare are NOT single payer.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Like the National Health Service in the UK, or the Cuban healthcare system.
think
(11,641 posts)My Good Babushka
(2,710 posts)Everyone with a human body benefits from access to medical care, and that's everyone. There are not some people who need shitty care and some people who need good care. We're not some of us cyborgs and some of us human!
pangaia
(24,324 posts)sarge43
(28,942 posts)Tricare bennies don't change from state to state or do VA's.
More Clinton "It's too haaaard."
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Hillary Clintons sudden attack on Bernie Sanders single-payer health care plan is a dramatic break with Democratic Party doctrine that the problem with single-payer is that it is politically implausible not that it is a bad idea.
Single-payer, the Canadian-style system in which the government pays for universal health care, takes the health insurance industry out of the picture, saving huge amounts of money. But the health insurance industry has become so rich and powerful that it would never let it happen.
That was certainly Clintons position back in the early 1990s, when she was developing her doomed universal coverage proposal for her husband, Bill.
But in the ensuing years, both Clintons have taken millions of dollars in speaking fees from the health care industry. According to public disclosures, Hillary Clinton alone, from 2013 to 2015, made $2,847,000 from 13 paid speeches to the industry.
Source: Public federal disclosures, Clinton campaign
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/13/hillary-clinton-single-payer/
In 2008, Clinton was the among the three biggest recipients of campaign cash from pharmaceutical-related companies, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In all, the watchdog group reports that she raised $738,000 from employees of pharmaceutical manufacturers and companies classified as Pharmaceuticals /Health Products. The center reports that Clinton also raised more than $1.2 million from the insurance industry -- which includes health insurers.
On top of those campaign contributions, the Clintons and their family foundation have benefited from their ties to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
In 2011, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) -- the primary trade association representing drug companies -- paid Bill Clinton $200,000 for a speech, as the organization was lobbying the Hillary Clinton-led State Department. Last year, the Drug Chemical and Associated Technologies Association, a trade group whose members include major pharmaceutical companies, paid her a $250,000 speaking fee.
Meanwhile, the Clinton Foundation has received between $1 million and $5 million worth of donations separately from drug manufacturers Pfizer and Procter & Gamble, and from health insurers Humana and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Some of those companies made donations as recently as this year, according to the foundations website.
That largesse was part of a friendship forged after those industries opposed her 1993 health care initiative -- and which continued after she won reelection to the Senate in 2006.
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/democratic-debate-2015-hillary-clintons-enemies-pharmaceutical-insurance
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)She is such a liar and hypocrite.
pberq
(2,950 posts)"$2,847,000 from 13 paid speeches to the industry."
warrprayer
(4,734 posts)Of the thread
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Then she says, see I was the one fighting for it all along, when in fact she was paid big bucks to derail it or water it down. Somehow, not much seems to get done. Isn't she clever? Isn't she great?
I call it betrayal. To me, that's what this election is all about. That's what all the money buys.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)He is not available to the highest bidder.
appalachiablue
(41,168 posts)Nitram
(22,845 posts)don't we have it yet? The Clintons? If Bernie can't get around the Clintons, how is he going to get around the GOP.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)Nitram
(22,845 posts)And criticize Obama and Clinton for wanting to provide cheaper health care for more Americans in an achievable way given the current political situation.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)Nitram
(22,845 posts)...this morning, so I'll summarize. Keep Obamacare, which made some excellent advances in coverage and enrollment and improve on it to increase enrollment and improve coverage. Rather than throw the whole system into chaos, tweak it to perfection. that could very well be single-payer when and if liberals get the majorities in Congress they need to accomplish that.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)in the state and somehow make it federal.
Too bad 31 states right now will never.
Nitram
(22,845 posts)libtodeath
(2,888 posts)change congress.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Clinton has no vision of anything except her being president.
panader0
(25,816 posts)nice specifics. lol
Nitram
(22,845 posts)....single-payer when they've been trying to repeal Obamacare for 7 years? LOL yourself.
nyabingi
(1,145 posts)of what Bernie means when he says "political revolution".
The man knows how Washington works because he's been there a while, and he knows that the Republicans (or even some Democrats) aren't just going to go along with his ideas simply because he was elected. Bernie understands that it will take pressure from a fired-up, voting electorate to apply pressure on their elected leaders to vote in the interests of those who put them there.
Most of the time, politicians are only responsive to their big-money donors and there own economic class (which is the very wealthy), but they can be swayed to actually paying us (the voters) some attention if they face the prospect of losing their next election.
This is why Bernie's campaign is emphasizing "we" instead of "me". Hillary tells you what "she" can get done, Bernie tells us what "we" can get done. Big difference there.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...where does he find the support needed to advance his proposals?
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)Congress has an 18% approval rating. They can be beaten.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)for us and maybe lose?
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)And she would give the Republicans at least half of what they want. She could then say she did the best she could and call it a win-win for her and the Republicans. But the rest of us would call it a win-win-lose... guess which one of the three the rest of us would be?
Then the Republicans could pretend they want to repeal, on a weekly basis, the plan now with enhancements that they wanted all along.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)She might convince enough slow-witted and personality-based voters to come on board, but I don't see why honest liberals would vote for her.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)very likely.
HRC would probably appoint a Party Chair that recruited and funded neo-liberal Democrats that would block single payer. After a Hillary Presidency we could maybe then BEGIN to build a Democratic Party that would work towards implementing single payer, but during a Hillary Presidency SHE would be working to ensure the Democratic Party was filled with Democrats that don't want to implement single payer.
All of that money from health care companies means something. I really wish more people believed that.
I'd really love to begin the process of building a Democratic Party that truly wants a single payer or STRONG universal health care system (the ACA does not qualify for that) with Bernie Sanders NOW.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)panader0
(25,816 posts)once, same sex partners couldn't marry. Things can change for the better if people try. That's
being progressive. Making progress.
zentrum
(9,865 posts)
healthcare which is not for profit is unthinkable.
And she already is making noises about tinkering with Social Security.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)ConsiderThis_2016
(274 posts)Was it simply because of (D) / (R) seats in both chambers, or was she attempting to scratch the backs of her & her husband's friends, and did not benefit (R) insiders enough? What went wrong back in the early 1990's?
NCjack
(10,279 posts)Proud Liberal Dem
(24,426 posts)that the Clinton health care reform effort ultimately failed in 1993 and we *barely* got ACA in 2010 (17 years later), I'd say that she was being pretty realistic. This is not even to mention the fact that SP was unable to pass/get implemented in Bernie's own state recently (2015).
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)And we learned things in the process of trying to move Hillarycare:
As a result, Republicans and the health insurance industry linked arms to vociferously oppose Clinton's plan, and it died before even getting a vote in the Democratic-led Congress. A crucial lesson that the Obama White House learned from that endeavor was that health care change of that magnitude was nearly impossible to move through Congress, given that most Americans are satisfied with their coverage. As a result, Obamacare was aimed more narrowly at the uninsured.
Hillary Clinton adopted that lesson in her 2008 presidential campaign, proposing a health care plan that closely resembled Romney's. It included an individual mandate to buy insurance, which Obama ironically argued against in the Democratic primary, only to embrace it later as president.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-22/how-hillarycare-did-and-didn-t-lead-to-obamacare
I think that is one of the more objective articles I have found on the recent history of healthcare reform and I think it portions the right amount of credit to Hillary Clinton. My issue now is how do we create a healthcare system that is beneficial to both people AND most employers/businesses. Healthcare (including insurance costs) in the US is eating almost 20% of the GDP. It is driving bankruptcies, foreclosures and student debt. There is a lot of waste and inefficiency in that 20% and single payer with its preventative care and price negotiating power is best suited to deliver high value.
While I understand that compromise is usually the way things get done in DC, I don't think that compromise is where we should start. It limits how effective we will be in negotiating by giving away too much from the word "go".
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,426 posts)but getting to a fully universal and affordable system is going to be a long hard slog all the way to the finish line. And once we get there, future generations will wonder what all the fuss was about IMHO. It's fair to debate strategies between Hillary and Bernie but I don't believe that Hillary "just doesn't care".
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)We are approaching that with healthcare. Many respected economists believe that no nation on earth can survive economically while spending more the 20% of its GDP on healthcare. We're nearly there.
I believe that she cares deeply about healthcare. My divergence is about the goal of the fight and how to get there.
If we believe that corporations have more influence on government policy than we do (and why wouldn't we?) then we can believe that corporations outside of the healthcare/pharma/debt/insurance alignment have a financial interest in single payer. Single payer would hurt pharma/insurance but help all the others. It can also help small businesses get aligned with $15/hr min wage because it takes away a major per employee cost while giving them healthier employees. On an national scale it can help large employers keep jobs in the US by reducing the cost of doing business here.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)She did make these hard choices to not pursue that option though. It was easier just to take money from insurance companies and try to push for legislation that would insure that people bought health insurance and they could just go on their merry way of price gouging US citizens with substandard health insurance, high deductibles, and co-payments.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)WDIM
(1,662 posts)Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)And kiss your Social Security goodbye, don't fool your self, this is the prize Hillary will hand to Wall Street.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)now know is a grand pay-to-play scheme by the rich only for the rich only.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)They kept telling us, "But solar power isn't there yet."
It was a self-fulfilling prophecy that set us back decades.
boythayer
(14 posts)about all those who are now insured, when the majority of them are high deductible plans which they will only use if they absolutely must have to, and because the deductible is high, they will be paying an arm and a leg.
It's basically catastrophic insurance
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)And we have to build around that success. That pesky individual mandate is a great example of how the government keeps the insurance companies in business.
And welcome to D.U.!!!