"I believe that by the year 2000 we will have a single payer system" Hillary Clinton 1994

[LiberalArkie]

Remarks by the Fist Lady to Lehman Brothers Health Corporation

Mrs. Hillary Clinton: No, because what I think would happen if there is not health care reform this year, and if, for whatever reason, the Congress doesn’t pass health care reform, I believe, and I may be to totally off base on this, but I believe that by the year 2000 we will have a single payer system. I don’t think it’s — I don’t even think it’s a close call politically.

I think the momentum for a single payer system will sweep the country. And regardless of the referendum outcome in California, it will be such a huge popular issue in the sense of populist issue that even if it’s not successful the first time, it will eventually be. So for those who think that building on the existing public-private system with an employer mandate is radical, I think they are extremely short-sighted, but that is their choice.

There are many ways to compromise health care reform, and I don’t think that the President could have been clearer in every public statement he has made that he has one bottom line. It is universal coverage by a date certain. And he has basically told the Congress, you know, you’ve got different ways of getting there. Come to us, and let’s look at it. There are only three ways to get to universal coverage. You know, a lot of people stand up and applaud universal coverage, and they sit down, and you say, “Well, how are you going to get there?”, and they don’t want to confront that there are only three ways.

You either have a general tax — the single payer approach that replaces existing private investment — or you have an employer mandate, or you have an individual mandate. And there isn’t any other way to get to universal coverage. The market cannot deliver universal coverage in the foreseeable future, and any compromise that people try to suggest that would permit the market to have a few years to try to deliver universal coverage without a mandate that would take effect to actually finish the job will guarantee a single payer heath care system.

Remarks By Hillary Clinton speaking to Lehman Brothers Health Corporation

The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, June 15, 1994 The William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Previously Restricted Documents


http://www.pnhp.org/news/2014/december/hillary-clinton-1994-statement-on-single-payer

[Lucinda]

1. And? The world is a little different 20+ years later.

She is very much for universal health care. She has a plan to grow the ACA rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, given the congressional makeup at this time.

[apnu]

2. And then SCOTUS gave the 2000 election to W, changing history for the worst.

Had the GOP not STOLEN the 2000 election from Gore, who actually won it, we might have Single Payer today.

Instead we got the worst terrorist attack on US soil in US history, while W was a sleep at the wheel.

We got an expensive war that was run up on the US' credit card.

We got a crappy economy, built on free credit that crashed and put so many people out of work.

We got a destabilized Middle East that is a terrorist factory, exactly as HW Bush said it would be.

We took so much damage to our international reputation that its permissible to throw shoes at the President.

[Hoyt]

3. I think we all did, or at least hoped for it or something very close. Then, Republicans took over.

[libdem4life]

4. Watch out for the, uh, responses. Not convenient information.

[LiberalArkie]

6. It sure would have been nice if there had been Democrats in office between 1994 and now.

[Dems to Win]

5. And Hillary couldn't even pass her half-a-loaf plan

Had to wait 20 years for Obama to pass a quarter-loaf plan

Note that Hillary does not indicate, and NEVER indicated, that she was in favor of single payer. She was using single payer as a threat to try to build support for her complex unworkable plan called managed competition.

[Lucinda]

9. But she did manage to get insurance for a whole lot of kids. n/t

[Dems to Win]

10. In the most expensive, inefficient way possible

Rather than expanding Medicaid, CHIP was set up as a standalone program. They had to have endless outreach efforts at schools, etc, telling parents to apply for it separately.

I note we still don't have Universal Health Care for children in the US.

[Lucinda]

11. I'm always a little stunned when people seem to overlook the fact

that there is a huge chunk of the country that doesn't see things the way the left does. And part of governance is serving ALL of the people, which is why less than perfect solutions can come in to play. And even with all that, kids still got insurance.

[thesquanderer]

12. Yes! Single payer was what she was trying to PREVENT when it seemed otherwise inevitable! WTF? (nt)

[hobbit709]

7. It's TOO hard. NO we can't is the current spin on this.

[thereismore]

8. "I don’t even think it’s a close call politically."

It's a far call now.