Reply #22: Hillary wanted to save managed care [View All]

[Terwilliger]

the idea of single-payer was alien to her

http://www.prorev.com/indexa.htm

Despite the contrary evidence of public opinion polls, the concept of Canadian-style single-payer insurance was dismissed early. Tom Hamburger and Ted Marmor in the Washington Monthly tell of a single-payer proponent being invited to the White House in February 1993. It was, he said, a "pseudo-consultation;" the doctor was quickly informed that "single payer is not politically feasible."

When Dr. David Himmelstein of the Harvard Medical School pressed Mrs. Clinton on single payer, she replied, "Tell me something interesting, David."

In other words, write Hamburger and Marmor:

"Fewer than six weeks into the Clinton presidency, the White House had made its key policy decision: Before the Health Care Task Force wrote a single page of its 22-volume report to the President, the single payer idea payer idea was written off, and "managed competition" was in.