Bill Clinton: Why I failed on Health Care (Esquire Interview)

[denem]

http://www.esquire.com/features/bill-clinton-interview-1009-4#ixzz0QXi2WbKB"> President Clinton says he should have set up a bipartisan process in Congress, so that the people would know what the Republicans were proposing, and vote against them in 1994. With all due respect, Mr. President, you could not be more wrong. A long slow build up to 1994 with the election as a referendum on competing proposals would have been a disaster. If the Democratic Party can't get their message straight now, with a majority, what chance Congressional representatives in the heat of an election, betting on their own survival? The only thing in your analysis that rings true is two sentences: "(The GOP's) only option is to beat anything. Kill it off". You see that as personal to Bob Dole? The lesson of the 1990's is that's standard issue Republican MO, a lesson you seem NOT to have learned.

(Today) one of the reasons you see so many Republicans negotiating is that they know we've got sixty votes with Specter switching

The thing is I don't see "so many Republicans negotiating". I don't think they've moved an inch from 'beat anything, kill it off'. If that's you take on the 1990's, you took home the wrong lesson.

BILL CLINTON: WHY I FAILED ON HEALTH CARE

I should not have written Legislation in the first place

I realized too late that I couldn't get the health-care reform through in the ordinary course of business. If I had known in the beginning what I found out once we got into the weeds, I would have told the American people that I could not keep my commitment to them to put this bill up this quick, and that I was going to set up a bipartisan process and they need to realize that Congress as it currently existed would not pass health-care reform. So they needed to listen to the Republicans, and they needed to listen to us, and decide who they agreed with and vote in the midterm elections accordingly, and I would hope they would support our people, but we would respond based on what they did.

By fighting that against all the odds, without explaining it to people when we realized it, we made all our vulnerable Democrats more vulnerable. It lowered the turnout of our voters, and when we did pass the gun legislation in our budget, it raised the turnout of their voters.

I didn't have the numbers

And keep in mind, the distribution of parties in the Senate was 55 — 45. It wasn't 60 — 40 like we've got now. So when you add the fact that we were taking this up, they had the filibuster votes they needed in the Senate. one of the reasons you see so many Republicans negotiating is that they know we've got sixty votes with Specter switching.

Bob Dole was running for president

And we now know, and I'm surer of this than anything: We just couldn't do it as long as Bob Dole was running for president. He's a good guy, and he's a friend of mine, and the whole time I dealt with him, the only time he was not as good as his word was on this. After Rostenkowski had asked for a bill, I personally asked Bob in the Cabinet Room if we could sit down and write a bill together and send a joint bill to the Congress. Because he was really good on health care for a Republican, cared about it, and he said, "You know, you need to send a bill in and we need to produce a bill, so that people know there are differences between the two parties and our approaches. Then we'll get together and compromise it out." When he said that, I think he believed it. Then he gets Bill Kristol's famous memo that says, you know, If you let Bill Clinton pass any kind of health-care bill, the Democrats will be the majority party for a generation, and you can forget about your presidential hopes. Your only option is to beat anything. Kill it off.

"I'm surer of this than anything: We just couldn't do it as long as Bob Dole was running for president."

Sorry Bill, you just don't get it.

[xultar]

1. Clinton haters in 3. 2. 1....

[denem]

2. It's in the man's own words. I could not have been more fair.

[xultar]

4. Nope I wasn't talking about you. I'm saying even though he's being honest

he'll still be flamed here.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

14. A contrite Bill Clinton. Hats off to him. He's trying to warn Obama. Obama needs to listen and learn

from President Clinton's mistakes. He admitted that he didn't listen. Let's hope that Obama *is* listening. I can't go through another 1994. I simply can't! :puke:

[Autumn]

3. A lot more than that. Yeah he's got it, and so does

Obama. I hope.

[gkhouston]

5. I don't think things were desperate enough, back then. Now, even those of us

who have health insurance realize our "security blanket" may be more illusion than fact--something that could easily evaporate with our jobs or a serious illness. The financial burden of healthcare seems much worse than it was back in the 90's and I think that's why there's broad interest in a public option. Even people who have insurance realize they're paying too much for too little.

[BootinUp]

6. hmmm, this looks like an OP without a comprehensible point...

[Autumn]

7. Selective , much more to the quotes,

all in all an excellent interview.

[denem]

11. I kept it on Health Care.

The whole interview is worth reading.

[Autumn]

12. Very much worth reading

But you were still selective on the health care quotes. IMO

[denem]

10. Bill Clinton explanation of Health Care failing in 1994.

That;s enough.

Then his solution: Allow the public to judge the Republican proposals.

That's more than enough.

[pinto]

8. "Bill Clinton, Then and Now: The Esquire Interview"

Bill Clinton, Then and Now: The Esquire Interview

In a sprawling discussion of his past and our common future, the former president compares his administration's early years with Obama's and talks about what he believes — in health care and next year's midterms — is about to happen.

By Mark Warren

In his most extensive interview since Barack Obama took office, former president Bill Clinton predicts that Obama will win passage of health-care reform, urging the Democratic party to "stand and deliver" while the Republicans are "in la-la land."

Endorsing Obama's push for health legislation, Clinton tells Esquire executive editor Mark Warren that Democrats should ignore opposition from the GOP. "The president's doing the right thing. It is both morally and politically right," Clinton says. "I wouldn't even worry about the Republicans. I'd worry about executing.

''Do I think he's doing the right thing, even though he's jamming a lot of change down the system? I do," Clinton says. "So there's a lot that's like my first year, but it's going to have a different ending — he's going to get health-care reform."

In the interview, which appears in the October issue of Esquire (on sale this week), the former president also talks candidly about his own efforts to reform health care fifteen years ago, about the Supreme Court decision that resolved the 2000 election, about the state of the Republican Party and the prospect for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.

Highlights from Esquire's exclusive interview:

<more at>

http://www.esquire.com/features/bill-clinton-interview-1009

[Autumn]

9. Thank you n/t

[karynnj]

13. Bill Clinton has his numbers wrong - he started with 57 Democrats

in 1993, then from June, 1993 to Jan 1995, he had 56. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/103rd_United_States_Congress#Members In addition, our 60, counts Spector who he had. He also had Jeffords and Chaffee as Republicans. President Obama has it better, but not by as much as Clinton makes it seem. His plan was never voted on in either house - per his own book, it was because he did not have the votes and he did not back any Congressional alternative.

Like another poster said, the real difference is that more people understand that they could be the ones without insurance. Knowing that they could be unemployed allowed FDR to pass unemployment insurance.