Clinton said he pleaded with Congress to write a bill, but they refused

[ProSense]

From the NYT (with video):

As keynote speaker at the Netroots Nation conference of progressive/liberal bloggers in Pittsburgh, Mr. Clinton sarcastically denounced what he considers the false, revisionist history: “Everybody knows that Hillary presented this horribly complicated, 1,300-page bill, which would have broken the back of the federal statutes. And what she should’ve done was refused to present a bill and just have her committee issue a report to Congress with recommendations.”

In reality, Mr. Clinton said, the bill-writing was dictated by Congress: “We actually pleaded with the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee to let us send a report with recommendations and have them write the bill, and he said, ‘I will not take this up unless you send me a bill.’ ”

Mr. Clinton recalled that the chairman at the time — Representative Dan Rostenkowski, whom President Clinton later pardoned for a mail-fraud conviction — countered that without a presidential bill, interest groups would swarm all over his committee. The lobbyists would overwhelm the lawmakers, in other words.

And according to Mr. Clinton, the chairman argued: “There’s not enough base-level knowledge in the Congress to resist it, and we will never get anywhere. This will not happen unless you give a bill.”

Giving Congress the bill that Mr. Clinton says it requested didn’t work out; the proposal was complicated, with new layers of governmental control seized upon by opponents within and outside the legislative branch. Mr. Clinton blames the insurance industry, in particular, for dooming his plan.

[uponit7771]

1. What's sad is how easily influenced our congress is by lobbiest, I'd run far away from them as

...soon as I saw them

[patrice]

5. Easily influenced because they have very little idea what it's like to be us and they do nothing

to remedy that situation.

I'd LOVE to have the time and resources to do a study of EXACTLY what becomes of all of the public phone calls, emails, letters, faxes, petitions and all of the other ways that we make ourselves and what's going on with us known to them, compared to similar communications from deep-pocket$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[Autumn]

14. They are filed under

trash.:shrug: What have you done for your Congressman or Senator lately?

[Cha]

2. Ye-ah.."the insurance companies" and here

they are again out in full force along with every other facistshit opposing real health care for Americans.

[ProSense]

3. Yeah, also shows how much

a President can strong-arm a Congress if the members are not willing to go along.

Obama has pushed health care reform beyond the doors of Congress. A bill will be voted on, moved to Congress conference, and sent to Obama to sign.





Edited typo, wrong word

[Cha]

4. Yes, and I do know that we

have a President and his Team who are pushing very hard for a good Bill to sign.

[malletgirl02]

6. History Repeating

The same thing that happen to Clinton is happening to Obama. Hopefully Obama is learning and will correct his current course.

[ProSense]

7. What?

The two situations aren't remotely alike.

[malletgirl02]

8. Congress

That was about Congress dragging its feet not Obama. Despite all the letters and the demands of the progressives in Congress pushing Obama on the Public option, but not bills have come out of committee. I get what, Obama is doing. I think it is a like, because like Clinton, Obama is trusting Congress to come up with a bill, and they are dragging their feet. It is up to Congress to write the bill since he isn't in the legislative branch, and he wants to respect the process. I guess, I just got caught up in the negativity.

[ProSense]

9. Congress has written and passed four bills out of committee

and will vote on a bill shortly. This isn't remotely similar to the situation in the 90s.

[NYC_SKP]

10. No, Quite the opposite as I am reading it. nt

[karynnj]

11. I don't think Clinton is telling the whole truth here

He refused to support a bipartisan bill from the House and he refused to support a bipartisan bill that Bill Bradley wrote. It may be true that the chair of Ways and Means did say this, but that doesn't mean no one in Congress would. SCHIP started in the Senate.

To me this sounds like Clinton trying to spin the way they did healthcare. Not to mention, if true, they should have included Senate experts - such as Kennedy, but they didn't.

[saltpoint]

15. Thank you for pointing out the admirable role of Bill Bradley and

thank you for suggesting that many in the Congress, including Kennedy's office, were pointedly excluded from the process.

[TomCADem]

12. Bottom Line - Handing Congress A Written Bill Didn't Work B/C

Then Congress is not invested in it at all, and they distance themselves from it the moment lobbyists get to them.

[inna]

13. recommended.

[Beacool]

16. Bill has been saying this for years.

Nothing new, except that as usual, he's the favorite whipping boy of the right AND the left. Therefore, not too many people bothered to listen to the reasons why they felt that they had to draft the bill themselves until now. Obama let Congress do their thing and isn't that just going peachy.

:eyes:

[joeycola]

17. Yet the official WH line is that they have learned from the Clinton's mistakes

--therefore they believe the lies.

[rvablue]

18. Please share...what "lies" is the WH believing now? n/t