Jim Cooper Was Demonized By Hillary Clinton As Was Anyone With Alternative Health Care Proposals

[KittyWampus]

In 1992, Jim Cooper came up with a health care reform plan that attracted wide, bipartisan support. A later version had 58 co-sponsors in the House -- 26 Republicans and 32 Democrats. It was sponsored in the Senate by Democrat John Breaux and embraced by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others.

But unlike the plan Hillary Clinton came up with then, the Cooper plan did not include employer mandates to force universal coverage.

For that, he was demonized by Hillary Clinton.

Fact is back then, both Democrats and GOP wanted Health Care reform passed (references posted below).

Hillary's inability to work with both Republicans AND members of her own party, her secrecy and vindictiveness are what torpedoed Universal Health Care/Coverage back then.

We can also thank Bill Clinton's putting an incompetent crony, Ira Magaziner in charge of forging Hillary's alternative policy. The one that failed.

Here are some facts Krugman and the Clintons assume you are ignorant of. Inform yourselves.

..................................


So after his election, President Clinton set up a policy-planning process to prepare a health-care reform plan for congress to pass. He chose his wife, the First Lady, Hillary Clinton to head up the planning process. He chose his long-time friend Ira Magaziner to be her deputy.

Magaziner had two major flaws. His first was that his instinct was always to make things more complicated. His second flaw was that he thought like a management consultant. Magaziner had no idea how to form a large coalition agreeing on a proposal or how to form the consensus built on compromises and concessions that is necessary to bring disparate camps together.

And the policy-planning disaster duly took place, for Magaziner set up a process that was the antithesis of the coalition-forming, doubt-resolving, opposition-coopting process needed to construct a viable legislative proposal. Magaziner wanted to keep the final key decisions ... in the hands of three people," the President, the First Lady, and Ira Magaziner. That this turned out to be a bad idea did not come as a surprise. At the very start of the Clinton Administration Donna Shalala, HHS Secretary, and Alice Rivlin, Deputy Director of OMB, were especially vocal at stating their belief that the Magaziner process was not "a disciplined policy-development process that would result in a piece of legislation that was fully vetted."

But don't blame Magaziner. Blame the guy who chose him--Bill Clinton. And blame Bill Clinton's inability to accept bad news and his eagerness to trust those who would tell him what he wanted to hear. As Senator Jay Rockefeller tells the story, his former aide Judy Feder "...flew to Little Rock.... She was worried.... Economists among the working group argued strongly that their work must not be tainted by the kinds of 'rosy scenarios' that had marred other administrations' cost projections....snip

Ira Magaziner responded to these criticisms not like a policy planner building a consensus but like a management consultant. Instead of bringing the Clinton Administration's economic (and social!) policy analysts and cabinet secretaries on board, he posed his and their positions to the President as sharp alternatives. And in early September 1993 the Peresident ruled in favor of Magaziner--and against Rubin, Bentsen, Shalala, Panetta, Rivlin, Tyson, and company... snip

And the sense of betrayal was heightened among centrist Democrats as the Clinton Administration adopted a strategy of attempting to stampede rather than coopt the moderates. The worst example was the triple offensive--by the First Lady, House Committee Chair John Dingell, and the AFL-CIO--against Tennessee congressman Jim Cooper, sponsor with Senator John Breaux of an alternative centrist reform bill. As Johnson and Broder tell the story:

At a union-sponsored rally in Chattanooga, a copy of the "phony" Cooper-Grandy bill was ceremoniously burned. Unless Cooper changed his tune, threatened Jim Neely, the President of the Tennessee AFL-CIO, labor would either 'sit out' the Senate election or possibly endorse Republican candidate Fred Thompson. The most damaging blow fell at a civil rights meeting in Memphis. AFSCME... distributed a flyer that claimed "Cooper's plan would punish African-Americans more than others" and is "an injustice to our community." Cooper, the flyer said, has joined forces with the "health care profiteers" to offer "a fatal dose of phony reform"' Ellen Globocar, AFSCME's political director, justified the tactics: "Cooper probably did more damage to Bill Clinton's program than anybody.... We would get calls from the DNC ... 'Why are we beating up on him?" And we'd say, "Maybe it's because he's trying to kill the President's health care proposal'."

Yet aggressive attacks on centrist Democrats--key swing votes--were coupled by total passivity on the part of a White House that seemed unwilling or unable to make the case for health care reform. They way Jay Rockefeller put it as early as December 1993: "I'm furious right now at the White House for several reasons. There is still no organization on health care. There's nothing out there.... The White House was simply not fighting back. There wasn't any effective political operation to win the battle..."

http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TotW/system.html

............................................................................................

Hillary Threatened To “Demonize” Anyone Who Stood In The Way Of Her Health Care Plan.

At a retreat for Senate Democrats, Hillary was asked by Bill Bradley, “whether the Clinton’s failure to meet their promise of submitting health care legislation to Congress in one hundred days… would make it more difficult to win passage… Perhaps some substantive changes might be required in the interest of realism, Bradley suggested. No, Hillary responded icily, there would be no changes because delay or not, the White House would ‘demonize’ members of Congress and the medical establishment who would use the interim to alter the administration’s plan or otherwise stand in its way.”

Bill Bradley And Pat Moynihan Never Forgave Hillary For Treating Them As Enemies. “ Bradley and Moynihan later said they were flabbergasted at Hillary’s words and attitude that afternoon, but each came to believe that the incident was indicative of something more revealing about her character… ‘That was it for me in terms of Hillary Clinton,’ Bradley said many years later. ‘You don’t tell members of the Senate you are going to demonize them. It was obviously so basic to who she is. The arrogance. The assumption that people with questions are enemies. The disdain. The hypocrisy.’ Lawrence O’Donnell explained the depth of Moynihan’s disappointment with the woman who would eventually replace him in the Senate. The senator ‘didn’t hold grudges, didn’t personalize such matters,’ said O’Donnell. ‘But the “demonizing” colored his perception of Hillary, and how she operated, for the rest of his life.’”

Rep. McDermott Compared The Clinton Efforts To The Disastrous Invasion Of Gallipoli In World War I; Said Democrats Feared Having The Rug Pulled Out From Under Them By The Clintons. According to Broder and Johnson, “Clinton’s approach was fundamentally flawed, McDermott thought. The President was trying to achieve universal coverage mainly by controlling costs. That was fine; costs had to be controlled, but the reality of reform was much more complicated. And Clinton was beginning this battle with his forces seriously doubtful and divided. Privately, McDermott thought this effort was doomed. ‘We’re not going to pass anything,’ he said two and a half months before Clinton’s speech… There were many reasons for his pessimism, but he was most concerned about two factors: division and doubts about the Clinton plans – and doubts about Clinton himself – among Democrats. Of even greater concern was the powerful opposition of special interests. ‘Everybody out to go out and see the movie Gallipoli,” McDermott said in his office before Clinton’s speech. ‘Because we are like the colonials in Gallipoli. The British general have sent the Australians and the New Zealanders and Irish and all the rest out there to get themselves chopped up. And they’ve pulled the rug out from under us on other controversial issues… We’re taking on the medical industrial complex… And they’re sending raggedy-ass troops out there led by officers that nobody’s quite sure we trust.’”

Ways and Means Staff Director: Magaziner Was Arrogant, Offered Unrealistic Numbers. David S. Abernathy, staff director of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee said Magaziner “was arrogant enough that basically whatever advice was proffered by anyone who did understand the government or was an expert in health care policy was ignored.” The Magaziner task force, he thought, “wasted an incredible amount of time which he needed desperately. They just screwed us.” Member of Congress were rightly resentful, he said, because “that son-of-a-bitch Magaziner has so boxed us in by making their plan look cheap.” He complained that the savings and cost controls assumed by the administration plan “are beyond anything that nay professional health policy person has ever felt achievable. I have been doing this all my life and I just marveled at the chutzpah of the administration coming out with these numbers.”

Rep. McDermott: Ira Magaziner Was “Rasputin-Like.” Rep. Jim McDermott said that Magaziner “has been almost Rasputin-like in the view of most of us. He has kept all the knowledge to himself. He’s the only one who has been at all the meetings. He’s the one who has all the books. He is viewed as having way more power in this situation than he ought to have, if the President were smart.”

EVERYONE WANTED TO GET HEALTH CARE REFORM PASSED

The Prospect For Health Care Reform Was The Brightest Ever When The Clintons Began Their Efforts. According to Broder and Johnson, for years Congress “had been debating the issue. Countless hearings had been held. Expert testimony, covering every aspect of the issue, had been taken from every interest involved. Both Democrats and Republicans had formed special task forces. Poll after poll had been commissioned to fathom public attitudes. Legislation had been drafted, introduced, and subjected to intense scrutiny and lobbying. Yet only once did a bill providing universal national coverage ever pass a single congressional committee. Despite this record of repeated failure, the prospect for reform appeared the brightest ever when the Clinton effort began.”

Both Republicans And Democrats Wanted To Address The Health Care Issue; Republicans “Definitely” Wanted A Solution. According to the Boston Globe, during March 1993, Senate Republicans, led by John Chaffee were “furiously working behind the scenes to introduce a rival health overhaul plan based on the same ‘managed competition’ concept the White House espouses.” The Globe speculated that the Republican alternative, which did not seek to impose controversial cost controls, could prove far more attractive to key interest groups, like doctors and hospitals, and to conservative Democrats. "There are two things Republicans can do with health care - work towards a solution or hurl rocks at those who are seeking a solution," Chafee said. "The Republicans we have worked with definitely want a solution." Robert Boorstin, the White House spokesman for health care, said tthat administration officials had been working with the Republicans in the Senate and House "and we are glad to see further evidence that health care reform should happen this year."
DEMOCRATS...

John Dingell Was Determined To Honor His Father’s Legacy By Passing Health Care. Broder and Johnson wrote, “Helping pass this reform would be a crowning point of John Dingell’s congressional career, and a matter of intense family pride. His father, for whom he was named, had also been a congressman from Michigan nad had sat in that same chamber when Franklin Roosevelt proposed Social Security. The senior Dingell became and ardent battler to provide Americans universal coverage. Now the son, after thirty-eight years in Congress, ranking sixth in seniority of all members, was in a position to fulfill that personal legacy. He was determined to do so.”

Jay Rockefeller Saw The Clinton Effort On Health Care As The Culmination Of His Career And The Most Important Social Legislation In American History. Senator Jay Rockefeller, “felt especially involved with the Clintons and their attempt to achieve real reform; he had, in fact, been largely responsible for creating the coalition of pro-reform groups to campaign for passage of the Clinton plan and had opened his mansion in Rock Creek Park <…> to them for their first strategy meeting. To Rockefeller, what was finally being launched <…> was the most massive, controversial, and important social legislation in American history, one that made, as he said, Social Security look like ‘an add on, de minimus.’ Medicare, which took a decades-long struggle to enact, was another add on, de minimus. Aside from the personal stakes of everyone involved, he believed health care reform to be an issue that represented nothing less than the economic health and future of the United States.”

Ted Kennedy Believed That 1993 Was The Most Favorable Opportunity Of His Career For Passing Health Care Reform. Broder and Johnson reported of Ted Kennedy, “More than any other senator, he was identified with care, and better than anyone in that chamber he knew how strong opposition was… Clinton, he thought w as the first president who really understood the immensely complicated issue, the first who could articulate it publicly. The same was so, he felt, with Hillary Clinton – a ‘superstar,’ he called her privately – with whom he spent hours in conversation through these early presidential months. Like Rockefeller, Kennedy believed this was a moment of historic opportunity, the most favorable in all his years in Congress.”

...AND REPUBLICANS

Pat Moynihan And Bob Dole Believed They Would Work Together To Create A Final Health Care Compromise. According to David Broder and Haynes Johnson, In 1993 when the health care battle began, Pat Moynihan and Bob Dole “talked privately about the final outcome and laughingly discussed the timing of ‘the Moynihan-Done bill’ that could emerge in the spring of 1994 as the final compromise between all health care reform version. In his conversations with the President, the First Lady, and other strategists, Moynihan often referred to his dealings with Dole and to his belief that, in the end, they together would produce a bill.”

Bob Dole Encouraged Republicans To Compromise With The Clintons. Bob Dole urged Al Gore to tell the President that he wanted to deal, “Al, tell the President not to be so rough on us. When we introduced our bill we didn’t say one word about their health care plan. We’re not trying to sell this as a partisan plan. We’re trying to reach out to Democrats. It’s a good plan.” He told the vice president to inform Clinton that “maybe we could still put something together.”

John Chafee Signed On Almost Half Of GOP Senators For A Phased In Mandate Plan. Before meeting with Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Chaffee has “signed up almost half of the GOP senators, including Bob Dole, for a phased-in universal coverage plan that would require every individual to buy a policy.” According to Broder and Johnson, “Whatever his reservations about the Clinton proposal, and he had many, Chafee believed a major bill would pass the Congress within a year. The odds for passage were about sixty-forty, he thought. It wouldn’t be as sweeping as the Clinton version, and it was likely that the final legislation would more resemble his bill than the Clintons’.”

Sen. Bob Dole: Clinton “Executive Gridlock” Prevented A Compromise Health Care Bill. The Los Angeles Times reported, “‘We believe if we could get rid of executive gridlock -- President and Mrs. Clinton -- if they would come to the table now, we could still get a good bill this year,’ Dole said. Dole referred to Saturday’s vote by the Senate Finance Committee, which approved a bill that had all but eliminated the major components of the Administration’s health care reform package. ‘Employer mandates are dead. Price controls are dead. These big mandatory (purchasing) alliances are dead,’ he said. ‘. . . The American people aren’t ready for a totally government-run system.’ On Saturday, the Finance Committee passed a bill that fell short of Clinton’s goal of guaranteeing health coverage to everyone, instead approving a plan that set a goal of 95% coverage by the year 2002.”

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/obama_campaign_sends_out_resea.php
...............................

[Bread and Circus]

1. it is fairly well documented at thenation and counterpunch it is she that bears a lot of

responsibility for fucking things up.

I love Navarro's piece at counterpunch.

[KittyWampus]

3. Bill Clintons' incompetent crony, Ira Magaziner, also contributed a lot to the failure.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

21. maybe it was intentional incompetence on her part

Hillary got two opportunities and 8 years to pass UHC when we desperately needed it.

But the private meetings stayed private, so we don't know what happened.

Give her a third shot at it - hell no!

[ShortnFiery]

2. Excellent Research! Not everyone who despises The Clinton Machine are Republicans.

:evilgrin:

They've scorched a hell of va lot of earth in their "take no prisoners" campaign for God Almighty = Political Power and Influence. This latest smarmy campaign - seeking a 3rd DLC stacked Executive Branch Term is, IMO, the most shameless. :thumbsdown:

[babylonsister]

4. Rec'd with thanks. Does not work well with others, does she.

Because of her pigheadedness and unwillingness to compromise, this went no where. I'd like to think Clinton has learned some lessons from this, but do wonder.

[KittyWampus]

8. Again, it was also Bill Clinton's incompetent crony Ira Magaziner who couldn't work with others.

[Luminous Animal]

17. Cooper's alternative had less support than single payer...

But the health "care" industry loved it. His proposal had less to do with reform and more to do with obstruction. The same kind of false bi-partisan rhetoric and tactics promoted by DINO's and Republicans that Democrats on this board decry day in and day out.


Health Debate Is Filling Campaign Coffers

By RICHARD L. BERKE,
Published: April 19, 1994

"In less than a year, the mild-mannered Democrat from the most rural House district in Tennessee has become the toast of health care providers and insurance companies, which have channeled tens of thousands of dollars of contributions to his campaign for a Senate seat.

...

Since drug companies, hospitals, insurers and doctors have so much at stake in the legislation... They are showering millions of dollars in donations to members of Congress with prominent roles in the debate, like Mr. Cooper, whose plan is the alternative to President Clinton's proposal most often preferred by business because it neither requires employers to provide coverage nor limits insurance premiums."

...

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the New York Democrat who as head of the Senate Finance Committee will play a crucial role in passing any bill, has pulled in well over $100,000 from groups that want to influence the debate.

Those groups also gave tens of thousands of dollars to Senator John H. Chafee, the Rhode Island Republican whose plan, like Mr. Cooper's, avoids many of the provisions that businesses dislike most about the President's plan. "

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00EEDD1431F93AA25757C0A962958260

[babylonsister]

19. You insist on blaming all this on Cooper instead of the real villian:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200611/green-hillary/3

snip//

It is now widely accepted that the legislative strategy for health care was fatally flawed. Clinton’s White House never really understood the Senate. (Of the Clintons’ inner circle, Stephanopoulos, Leon Panetta, and Howard Paster all came from the House, and Al Gore had always been an outsider in the Senate.) Hillary Clinton is neither entirely wrong, nor especially charitable, to blame others for the bill’s demise. In her 2003 memoir, Living History, she singles out another House veteran, Majority Leader Richard Gephardt. But many administration officials had harbored serious misgivings from the outset, and many more grew to share them as the year went by. In All Too Human, Stephanopoulos charges that “her position stifled healthy skepticism about our strategy,” causing “quiet resentment.” By autumn President Clinton himself seems to have sensed the premonitory signs of failure, and maneuvered to cut a face-saving deal.

The best option now lay with Representative Jim Cooper, who, after first offering his own bill to the Clintons and being rebuffed, had introduced it in early October, stopping short of the universal coverage Clinton insisted upon but featuring many of the managed-care ideas she later came to embrace. That summer, a longtime friend of the Clintons named Thomas Schneider mentioned to them that Cooper had been a law-school classmate and remained a close friend. Schneider offered to broker a meeting.

One Saturday in late September, Schneider, Cooper, and Bill Clinton set out for an early-morning round of golf at the Army-Navy Club. Discussion soon turned to health care. Ever the deal maker, Clinton started probing Cooper for the possibility of a compromise. “Clinton was an artist at negotiation,” says one member of the group. “There was a lot of common ground there, and he had a good sense of the public mood about health care.”

It started to drizzle, so Clinton invited the group back to the White House, where the talk continued into the afternoon over beers. Cooper canceled a trip to Tennessee and kept listening. By the time he left that evening, says the source, “it was very close to a handshake.” Clinton’s parting words were, “Look, I think we can make this work. But Hillary’s leading this, and you’ll need to have a meeting with her.” Cooper agreed.

But when he met with the first lady shortly thereafter, it was as if the golf outing had been just a dream. “She was looking for Jim to surrender 100 percent,” says one source with knowledge of the meeting. “It was brutal,” Cooper told me. Things collapsed quickly, and no deal was struck. Hillary Clinton’s major initiative died ignominiously many months later, without even coming to a vote.

A close friend of the Clintons offers this diagnosis: “She was focusing on the delivery of health care. She was utterly and totally tone-deaf to the politics.”

more...

[Luminous Animal]

23. Jim Cooper should have surrendered.

His plan was crap. Its wide spread support a myth. He was nothing more than a toady for the insurance industry.

[KittyWampus]

30. As is Hillary now a toady of same insurance companies & fact stands, she ignored every other Bill

at the time and declared she'd demonize any opposition.

You, yourself, provide PROOF there were other Bills and I mention that fact in my first sentence in the OP.

[Lint Head]

5. Why has Jim Cooper voted so many times with Bush?

Jim Cooper supports the occupation in Iraq. He voted for the credit card companies during the bankruptcy vote. The financial people in Tennessee are in his pocket. I have met him. I am in Tennessee. He is the rep in my district. I dare anyone to call his office and ask why he supports the criminal in the White House. :dem:

[KittyWampus]

10. that's kind of irrelevant in terms of the subject of this thread. Cooper's HealthCare Plan had WIDE

bipartisan report and sprang from work involving both sides of the aisle.

And probably would have passed.

If it had, we could very well now be working on a Single Payer System or at least further marginalizing and controlling insurance companies.

Instead, we're starting from further behind than we were before Clinton took office and his wife and crony got involved.

[Luminous Animal]

15. It did not have WIDE support...

from anyone beside the corporate media, insurance industry, and Republican's who wanted to defeat the Clinton's plan.

quote:

"Even with a handful of Republicans on board (19 of the 176 House members), Cooper's proposal had far fewer co-sponsors (48 when it was introduced) than other bills, including the president's with 99, the plan pushed by House Republicans with 138, and the one supported by advocates of a Canadian-type system with 91."

http://www.allbusiness.com/information/publishing-industries/425276-1.html

[midnight]

6. I think when everyone makes healthcare a priority like homeland

security, it will get passed. This argument,is not enough information to see the whole picture.

Please go to John Dingell's site and read why he is endorsing Hillary.

“Universal health care is the defining purpose of my congressional career and my father's before me. My father first introduced universal health care legislation in 1943 and I have introduced legislation to ensure every American in this nation has health insurance for twenty-six Congresses. When Hillary Clinton is President, I will finally see that ambition become a reality.

“She is the only Democratic candidate with a plan that will cover every single American. At a time when 47 million Americans lack basic health insurance and millions more struggle to afford basic health care, we need Hillary Clinton in the White House, because she will get this done.

“I first worked with Hillary Clinton when she and I tried to pass universal health care in 1994. It was a tough fight, we lost when the health care lobby spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat us, but I knew she'd be back because she never gives up. And she did come back – to help pass the first SCHIP bill to give 6 million low-income children health coverage, to fight for better coverage for women's health, mental health, and affordable prescription drugs.



http://www.dingellhttp://www.dingellforcongress.com/node/93

[Iceburg]

12. Thanks for the link. Universal Healthcare is a the defining issue for me. /nt

[Luminous Animal]

7. Jim Cooper (DINO)

You have got to be kidding me. Jim Cooper destroyed any hopes of health care reform by promoting his own insurance industry backed plan before Clinton's was introduced. His role was to lead DINOs and Republicans to fuck things up.

Any so-called bi-partisan plan introduced in opposition to the Clinton's plan was an insurance industry backed Republican plan.

[KittyWampus]

11. Don't look now, but Hillary's plan is also a boon to the insurance industry. And her Mandate

assures that it will not pass.

[Luminous Animal]

13. I don't like Clinton's plan...

but the accusation that the Clinton's refused to work with Cooper on a bipartisan plan is fucking laughable. Cooper's plan had less support in Congress than a single-payer Canadian plan offered by real progressives in Congress. His plan's was a insurance industry written Republican backed scheme to destroy any hope of health care reform.

It is fucking unbelievable that it is now being promoted on a Democratic board as a viable alternative.

[KittyWampus]

14. Facts & Direct Quotes provided above. Much from Haynes Johnson & David Broder's Book 'The System'

And the quotes and facts provided don't focus solely on Cooper.

Here's my first sentence-

In 1992, Jim Cooper came up with a health care reform plan that attracted wide, bipartisan support. A later version had 58 co-sponsors in the House -- 26 Republicans and 32 Democrats. It was sponsored in the Senate by Democrat John Breaux and embraced by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others.

If you want to come up with some relevant, objective commentary on that later plan, I'd be happy to check it out.

[Luminous Animal]

16. It had less support in Congress than single payer.

http://www.allbusiness.com/information/publishing-industries/425276-1.html

"Even with a handful of Republicans on board (19 of the 176 House members), Cooper's proposal had far fewer co-sponsors (48 when it was introduced) than other bills, including the president's with 99, the plan pushed by House Republicans with 138, and the one supported by advocates of a Canadian-type system with 91"

...

" One may fairly ask who, apart from Cooper and his forty-eight co-sponsors, found the plan so attractive -- the American people, who in reality knew little about it; the Washington cognoscenti; employers and health care providers who favor the bill because it barely disrupts business as usual? The press did briefly mention that certain segments of the business community liked Cooper's plan, but it didn't dig deeper.

None of the reporters whose stories CJR examined had bothered to search Federal Elections Commission records to see who had recently contributed to Cooper's election campaigns, a task left to the consumer group Citizen Action. Citizen Action found that Cooper, who is running for the Senate, was indeed the bagman for health and insurance interests, receiving in the first six months of 1993 some $164,000 from doctors, hospital employees, insurance agents, and insurance company employees. That sum was the largest amount given to any House member by individuals representing those special interest groups."


And really, David Broder! David Broder?

[KittyWampus]

27. Again, you ignore the FIRST SENTENCE OF MY POST. Cooper's wasn't the only Bill.

You provide a quote that PROVES MY POINT.

[KittyWampus]

28. Cooper wasn't the only one with a Plan, You PROVE MY POINT! Clintons ignored everyone

And ultimately Clinton current plan is a boon to insurance companies by leaving them intact, garnishing wages into their private profits and not regulating them heavily enough.

Cooper was just ONE example.

Thanks providing more of them.

You not only failed to disprove anything- you proved MY point.

And ad hominem attacks on the books author is ludicrous.

What I posted were on the record QUOTES from legislators and people involved with the issue and the Clintons as well as objective FACTS.

[SoxFan]

39. Steenkin' facts!

Jim Cooper got on the wrong side of Hillary, thus, he was to be demonized, even though the end result was putting Fred Thompson in the Senate.

I met Jim Cooper years ago when he campaigned on behalf of a friend of mine who ran for Congress in NH-01. He is a gracious, thoughtful individual who represents his Tennessee constituents with competence and dedication. I'm glad to see that he is supporting Obama.

[KoKo]

9. Her Health Care Initiative was a mess...but it's been a long time since then

and she's had some experience in the Senate since that failed effort. Who knows if she's learned anything. But, Obama could be prone to making mistakes because he is so inexperienced in governing experience.

I'm worried about either Obama or Clinton delivering on their promises. We are in such deep trouble ...cleaning up after Bush will take a decade or more. And Repugs will make sure there's some crisis at the beginning of either Administration...just like what they did with Clintons and Carter.

[karynnj]

18. Obama was part of the group that got health care insurance for kids passed in IL

Reading the op, the difference between Obama and HRC, may be that Obama really does have the ability to work towards concensus.

[Luminous Animal]

20. Jim Cooper was an obstructionist.

And Bill Clinton created SCHIP which received bipartisan support.

Cooper and his plan, both backed by the insurance industry, had less support in Congress than Canadian style single payer. Read my links on this post. The OP is posting links from people who are rewriting history like the faux liberal David Broder.

[Cameron27]

25. Thank you,

I did read your posts, and I'm glad that you challenged the OP's assertions.

[KittyWampus]

29. And they ended up PROVING that Hillary demonized and ignored EVERYONE with alternative plans

[Luminous Animal]

34. There were several alternative plans.

How about you read up on each and everyone of them and then report back on the details that Clinton should have incorporated into her plan.

Of course, there is no fucking way you are going to do that.

Thought the Clinton's plan was flawed Coopers plan was crap. It was obstructionist. It was designed to derail health care reform. Every single activist who was working on universal health care knew that.

But go ahead and keep posting bullshit from the likes of Broder, who every single progressive blogger on the net derides as a useless tool.

[karynnj]

26. Bill Clinton did NOT create S-CHIP, nor did HRC - Kennedy and Hatch did

Read the NY Times of the day. It started as a Kerry/Kennedy bill based on a MA program passed over Weld's veto. (Yeah the same Weld that Bill spoke of positively in his autobiography as being a good person to have in the Senate - but he stuck with Kerry.)

Kennedy and Hatch created the compromise version that passed the Senate. HRC's contribution getting BC to include it in his budget.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DEFDC113CF932A2575BC0A961958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=2

This was Kennedy's baby's - and as he said this week neither Clinton was there in the beginning. http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/17/673452.aspx

[Luminous Animal]

35. Bill Clinton introduced the idea in his State of they Union address...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/06/clinton_claims_credit_for_child_program/

"FACT CHECK:

After the first lady's effort to enact universal health insurance went down to calamitous defeat in late 1994, she and other White House officials began looking for smaller changes that could win bipartisan support. Republicans had taken control of both the House and Senate that year.

A similar effort was taking place on Capitol Hill, with Sen. Edward Kennedy playing a lead role. One area he and the Clintons explored involved expanding health insurance coverage to children who had none.

On Dec. 9, 1996, senior White House health adviser Chris Jennings sent a memo to the first lady outlining several options -- and recommending ways for her to increase her visibility on the issue.

With his wife's backing, President Clinton announced a plan to expand health coverage to as many as 5 million children in his 1997 State of the Union address."

...

The effort nearly went off the rails when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Republican, said it violated the balanced budget agreement. President Clinton, eager to preserve the agreement, actually phoned lawmakers to kill the legislation when it came to the Senate floor.

Hillary Clinton defended her husband's action at the time. "He had to safeguard the overall budget proposal," she told one audience. But she insisted he would find other ways to provide health coverage for kids.

The effort was revived, with Kennedy, Hatch and a coalition of advocacy groups ranging from the Children's Defense Fund to the Girl Scouts lobbying hard. Kennedy made a special appeal to the first lady, who added her pressure anew."

You know. I am not a Democrat and I engaged in considerable amount of activism against several of Bill Clinton's policies. Even so, it really dismays me to see Democrat's minimize and slime the ACTUAL accomplishments of his administration by using the similar tired smears that pundits that have been using against the Clintons for years.

And RE: Kennedy. clearly the FACTS show that the Clinton's were against the original SCHIP bill because it looked like it would be headed for defeat. Kennedy is doing a little bit of lying by omission to boost his candidate.

[karynnj]

38. Kerry and Kennedy had introduced their bill the previous year

The facts are that articles FROM 1997 show that Kennedy is right. He is NOT saying the Clintons did nothing. He has given them credit for what they did. He said they were not there from the beginning - attacking HRC's claim that she initiated it because she didn't. The Boston Globe omits that Kerry/Kennedy was introduced and written in 1996 - using the word "meanwhile" to suggest that it was in parallel. However, it preceded both the December 1996 and the 1997 budget. It had already gained the support of all the Democrats in the Senate and was the basis of Kennedy's incredible efforts to pull in the needed Republicans. (Contrast that to the fact that NO Democrat on the Finance committee was happy with HRC's plan.)

The fact check was NOT on Kennedy's comment.

As to how important Clinton viewed his role - look at Bill's autobiography that had little mention of S-CHIP in its nearly 1000 pages.

There are however two pages where he speaks of the 1996 Massachusetts race. Given that one candidate vetoed similar legislation in MA and the other used it as a model to write national legislation, you have a pretty black and white contrast - which is not made. On the first page, he speaks of how he likes Weld, who he knew as a fellow governor and says he would be a nice addition to the Senate. On the next page, he says that he hated to lose Kerry because of his expertise on technology and the environment. He also then has a weird sentence that speaks of Kerry's decades long work to help underprivileged youth - something that has no votes in it. ("damning by vaint praise anyone?)

Not mentioned there or in his section on HIS accomplishment of opening Vietnam is all of Kerry's work on the POW/MIA committee, his foreign policy expertise or his career long work for veterans. He also doesn't mention Kerry's work on BCCI or on the Contras (where Weld, then in the Justice department stonewalled him. Those are all things that were more important to the 2004 race. Given that Bill Clinton selfishly released this book in July 2004, this is despicable. There is NO parallel discussion on any other 1996 Democratic incumbent. Kerry had no scandals in his first two terms. Clinton was looking at 55 Republicans in the Senate. REMEMBER EDITING ON THIS BOOK CONTINUED THROUGH APRIL 2004 - 2 months after Kerry was the de facto nominee.

Apparently, the stark difference on healthcare was not a reason to prefer Kerry. (I also bet Weld had he won would have voted for impeachment.)

[Enrique]

22. she has since learned that she has to cooperate with centrists and republicans

if she is elected, she will do so, and DU will tear her skin off for doing it.

[HeraldSquare212]

24. Her campaign was tearing Obama's skin off for suggesting doing that,

and then last week they decided it might be a good selling point so they started echoing it. Prior to that she had repeatedly emphasized what a battle-hardened fighter she is.

[Major Hogwash]

32. No, it's too late for her - her incompetence is obvious.

She gets bad advice from her #1 advisor, Bill, too.

[karynnj]

31. Excellent - reading this made me see things I didn't see in the 1990s

My Senator, Bill Bradley chose not to stand for re-election in 1996 because he said that the Senate was no longer civil and the political system was broken. I thought he was speaking of the Republicans - and always wondered why he didn't stay as someone had to fight it. I was happy when he ran against Gore.

Reading this:
"At a retreat for Senate Democrats, Hillary was asked by Bill Bradley, “whether the Clinton’s failure to meet their promise of submitting health care legislation to Congress in one hundred days… would make it more difficult to win passage… Perhaps some substantive changes might be required in the interest of realism, Bradley suggested. No, Hillary responded icily, there would be no changes because delay or not, the White House would ‘demonize’ members of Congress and the medical establishment who would use the interim to alter the administration’s plan or otherwise stand in its way.”

I get a different view - and can see why he said what he did. How awful for a solid liberal Senator and a very good man to be told by a First Lady of his party that they would demonize people in their way.

Senator Bradley endorsed Obama around the time of the NH primary.

[eridani]

33. Neither of our candidates is for single payer, period

Therefore we are going to have to get it by pushing from the bottom.

[Hart2008]

36. K & R

:kick:

[OzarkDem]

37. Shocking Obama would destroy health care reform

by hiring this guy, just so he can score points on Clinton. Everyone needs to see Obama for what he is - someone who doesn't want health care reform of any kind and is willing to lie or do whatever is necessary to stop it.