How Hillary undermined All Single Payer Advocates including Bernie Sanders and still is

[GreatGazoo]

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?

Until Clinton’s pivot, the accepted Democratic view was that single-payer was the best solution in theory, but that it was politically unrealistic. Clinton’s new critiques, by contrast, are an attempt to make Sanders’ single-payer proposals sound costly and destructive.
...
“I’m 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 Magaziner’s office. Ira Magaziner was Hillary’s right-hand man [in the health reform debate].” Magaziner wanted the single-payer advocates to have their say with the first lady.
...
“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...."

“We don’t have one size fits all; our country is quite diverse. What works in New York City won’t work in Albuquerque,” she told an assorted audience of 20,000 employees of the electronic health records industry on February 26, 2014; the speech earned her $225,500.

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 Clinton’s paid speech circuit came to an end as her campaign revved up. But for her husband, with whom she shares a bank account, it hasn’t. This summer, he was the keynote speaker at America’s 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]

1. its the other way round...

The single payer unicorn pursuers have made modest progress difficult.

[coyote]

8. like the single payer unicorn health care we have in Europe.

That´s a Clinton supporter for ya..."No, we can't!!!"....inspiring no hope and stagnation wherever they go.

[appalachiablue]

40. You rang? The lowered expectations of 'pragmatic, centrist moderation', for the little people.

[Ken Burch]

11. It's not as though permanently giving up on single-payer

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]

64. Putting up Medicare as a choice on the Affordable Care Act for non-seniors to buy into instead of

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]

13. You should do some research on unicorns.

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]

22. Wait just a minute . . . . .may not be arty or teacher-like but OBVIOUSLY a Hillary supporter

And that means they don't recognize FACTS. . . . so talking about "historical significance" is wasted keystrokes.

[pangaia]

24. Yea, I know. You're right.

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]

17. You gonna tell Canadians, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, the French, the Germans...

...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]

42. Well said. eom

[PatrickforO]

60. You've got that right.

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]

61. Well said!

[NJCher]

62. you write the best posts

So glad you're here.


Cher

[Cleita]

74. Yep, I used to work as a campground host at a forest service campground sixty miles from the

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]

82. Spot on!

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]

18. If not toward single payer then "progress" toward WHAT ?

(btw: it is = it's)

[A Simple Game]

45. And how would you propose modest progress to proceed? By tweeking the ACA?

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]

57. You mean the single payer unicorn that will save $500 billion in the first year?

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 everyone’s 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 today’s 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]

80. "Modest progress" is a lie

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]

2. Hillary wants to increase access to health insurance ...

along with increasing premiums, deductibles, and insurance company profits.

[Shadowflash]

30. Exactly.

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]

66. Not to mention that the access promised will cost taxpayers more than full coverage under

Medicare for All.

[Major Hogwash]

3. Truly astounding that she claims she was ineffective simply cuz of one guy.

Yet, she who was not even elected to a public office at that time tries to blame Bernie.

[GreatGazoo]

19. Stealing the 1993 Bern and crashing it into the wall

[freebrew]

44. Her 'failure' to get single-payer...

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]

4. How Rovian

... to attack someone on something that has been her strength - her lifelong commitment to achieving universal healthcare in the United States.

[Ken Burch]

12. You're not committed to universal healthcare if you're AGAINST single-payer. n/t.

[Nonhlanhla]

14. Nonsense

Single payer is not the only model to achieve universal healthcare.

[Ken Burch]

16. It can't be achieved without challenging the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

And your candidate will never challenge them

Healthcare cannot be universal AND a commodity sold for profit.

[GreatGazoo]

20. it is the best and most cost effective way to do so

Clinton was for single payer in theory but thought it too difficult politically.

[Enthusiast]

33. We know the difference. We have the rest of the developed world as examples.

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]

25. Universal healthcare =/= single payer.

Most countries that have universal healthcare are NOT single payer.

[Ken Burch]

29. True. Some have healthcare systems where doctors and nurses are employed by the state.

Like the National Health Service in the UK, or the Cuban healthcare system.

[think]

36. Please do tell. what is Hillary's universal health care plan?

[My Good Babushka]

5. I've always felt contempt for the "we're too diverse to do anything" excuse regarding medicine

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]

15. The "we're too diverse to do anything" is a tactic to divide people.

[sarge43]

49. The seniors in CA have a different Medicare system than seniors in NY or FL?

Tricare bennies don't change from state to state or do VA's.

More Clinton "It's too haaaard."

[beam me up scottie]

6. Hillary had a few million reasons to stop fighting for universal health care:

Hillary Clinton’s Single-Payer Pivot Greased By Millions in Industry Speech Fees

Hillary Clinton’s 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 Clinton’s 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/

Democratic Debate 2015: Hillary Clinton’s ‘Enemies’ In Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industries Have Supported Her Campaigns, Foundation

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 foundation’s 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]

27. Grotesque

She is such a liar and hypocrite.

[pberq]

59. That explains everything.

"$2,847,000 from 13 paid speeches to the industry."

[warrprayer]

73. Best post

Of the thread

[Waiting For Everyman]

7. Her role as a participant was to scuttle reforms as much as possible.

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]

9. Bernie has never wavered in his principles

He is not available to the highest bidder.

[appalachiablue]

41. +1

[Nitram]

47. If Bernie has been fighting for suingle payer for 40 years, why

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]

48. That made no sense.

[Nitram]

50. Perhaps it makes no sense to make promises you can't fulfil.

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]

52. What is her plan?

[Nitram]

58. Well, you could actually go to her web site and read it for yourself, but I'm feeling generous...

...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]

65. All I have seen is some bizzare hope to get repuke governors to enact single payer

in the state and somehow make it federal.
Too bad 31 states right now will never.

[Nitram]

67. And you think Sanders will be able to overcome those odds?

[libtodeath]

68. He at least can fight for things at a federal level which could help

change congress.

[eridani]

84. Without an actual vision of where you are going, incrementalism is worth warm spit

Clinton has no vision of anything except her being president.

[panader0]

76. "tweak it to perfection" is a plan??

nice specifics. lol

[Nitram]

81. What are the specifics of how Sanders will get a GOP-dominated House to vote for...

....single-payer when they've been trying to repeal Obamacare for 7 years? LOL yourself.

[nyabingi]

78. I think you're missing the essence

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]

10. look at the handful of his peers in the legislature supporting his candidacy

...where does he find the support needed to advance his proposals?

[GreatGazoo]

23. the bully pulpit + the people

Congress has an 18% approval rating. They can be beaten.

[Doctor_J]

26. So we should vote for someone who will fight against what we need, instead of one who will fight

for us and maybe lose?

[A Simple Game]

53. But she would get things done. She would change things.

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]

21. She's completely sold out on pretty much every Dem principle, if she was ever in favor

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]

34. Huge +1!

[PoliticAverse]

28. Well we know that single-payer will "never, ever, happen" under a Clinton administration. n/t

[stillwaiting]

31. Exactly. And we would be FURTHER away from single payer than we are even now

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]

32. As Sanders himself said in 2009, there are maybe 8 Senators that support single payer.

[panader0]

77. Once, women couldn't vote, once, black people were slaves,

once, same sex partners couldn't marry. Things can change for the better if people try. That's
being progressive. Making progress.

[zentrum]

35. In Hillary-World

……healthcare which is not for profit is unthinkable.

And she already is making noises about tinkering with Social Security.

[Betty Karlson]

37. K&R for exposure. And for truth. eom

[ConsiderThis_2016]

38. I'd like to hear Bernie's opinion why Hillary-care didn't fly.

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]

39. Vote Bernie2016 and remove your debt-slave collar. /nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

43. Considering

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]

51. Yes Hillarycare would have been a bigger change than ACA is.

And we learned things in the process of trying to move Hillarycare:

“For all the criticism that the ACA has caused disruption, it’s remarkably incremental compared to what the Clinton administration proposed back in the 1990s,” said Larry Levitt, a health policy expert with the Kaiser Family Foundation who worked in the Clinton administration and helped develop the proposal. “The ACA leaves the current private insurance system largely unchanged for the majority of people who get coverage through their employers. The Clinton Health Security Act would have required most people to switch their health insurance coverage to new health insurance alliances, and it imposed caps on how fast premiums could rise.”

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]

56. I don't know much

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]

69. I think the best opportunity to fix policy is when it is hopelessly broken

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]

46. Hillary Clinton could have done a lot to advocate for health care for all...

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.

&list=PLxCJtc7BCESMq_FlN4nCmHpPZSyIyTAAp&index=1

[Armstead]

54. Reason #23456 for not nominating her

[WDIM]

55. Hillary Clinton. No We Cant! nt

[SoapBox]

63. Ditto.

[Ikonoklast]

70. President Hillary Clinton will fold like cheap tent on every tough issue.

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]

71. The DLC is the D wing of privatization of everything for their fantastical free-market, which we all

now know is a grand pay-to-play scheme by the rich only for the rich only.

[RufusTFirefly]

72. Reminds me of solar power naysayers

They kept telling us, "But solar power isn't there yet."
It was a self-fulfilling prophecy that set us back decades.

[boythayer]

75. I'm sorry, but it's disengenous to talk

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]

79. But she calls Obamacare a success!

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.!!!

[LS_Editor]

83. She's a bad lady.