The following piece was produced through OffTheBus, a citizen journalism project hosted at the Huffington Post and launched in partnership with NewAssignment.Net. For more information, read Arianna Huffington's project introduction. If you'd like to join our blogging team, sign up here If you're interested in other opportunities, you can see the list here.
Des Moines, Iowa --- It started out as a typical campaign announcement event as Senator Hillary Clinton unveiled her much awaited $110 billion dollar universal health care program that promises choice and coverage to the 47 million uninsured Americans desperate for health care, along with assurances of cooperation with Congress and no additional bureaucracy or increased federal spending. So far, so good. It was only after the press conference when things got squirrelly and reminded me once again that this is still a Clinton campaign.
After her press announcement when Senator Clinton was already being whisked off to her next campaign stop in Washington D.C., the assembled journalists met with her health care policy team. But before we could start querying the three member panel, the Clinton press handlers attempted to control the spin by announcing, "This will be for background only." That's press-speak for: "It's off the record."
What?
Was this a bad flashback to the secretive Clinton White House years?
I remembered the first Clinton Health Care Plan that sunk under the shroud of secrecy, mismanagement, and pure guile by shutting-out the press, Congress, and stakeholders (that's policy wonk speak for hospitals, docs, nurses, insurance companies, etc. etc.) proposing a 300-page program that made millions already happy with their health care skittish about the requirement of joining a new Uber-universal health care plan destined for oblivion.
"Why is it [the meeting] background?" asked a testy Dan Balz of the Washington Post, who was sitting next to me.
"Well, unless there's some brilliant quote, we want this to be just background," said Jay Carson, Clinton's National Press Secretary.
"But why? That's why we're here; to find out who these people are and what their contribution has been and is," I chimed in.
"Unless we're going to have a revolt, this will be background," Carson responded coolly.
More grumbling and grousing by Balz and Huffington Post's OffTheBus until Carson relented to our demands that the meeting be on record and the policy team of Neera Tanden, Gene Sperling, and Laurie Rubiner began explaining the finer details of Senator Clinton's latest health care plan for the nation.
I asked if any of the current advisors had been involved in the 1994 Clinton Health Care Plan directed by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Gene Sperling admitted to being a part of that failed program. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, but also served as President Bill Clinton's Chief Economic adviser and Director of the National Economic Council.
Sperling summarized the differences between the first Clinton Health Care Plan and the current program offered by Senator Clinton:
"This is a simpler plan and goes much further in protecting the people who like their coverage to keep their coverage. In 93 and 94, to prevent any possibility in selection issues, everybody had to go into health alliance. That was an issue that was disconcerting for people, so now you have choice. Secondly, there was a national board specifying [types of coverage] and I think that led to a lot of concern about a single government entity making all these decisions. There's a third difference. [In the old plan] small businesses had to provide coverage [for all their employees] and that meant an extra tax on them and this led to a lot of opposition and a lot of concern that it would impact on workers wages. The new plan creates a health care tax credit for small businesses that will provide incentives for job-based coverage."
Laurie Rubiner served as Director of Health Care Programs for New America Foundation, a think tank headquartered in the nation's capital before she joined the Clinton policy team and she continued the comparison:
"On government bureaucracy, our goal is not to create any new entities. We feel confident that we would be able to use the existing bureaucracy to oversee the new plan. Having said that, we know we haven't crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's because a lot of this can be worked through the Congress where there is a lot of expertise."
That's a lot left on the table. How do you sign up 47 million people without adding staff, bureaucracy, rules, and regulations? That question was never fully answered to anyone's satisfaction, but if you don't believe me, read the entire plan on www.hillaryclinton.com.
Neera Tanden, who didn't participate in the last Clinton Health Care Reform attempt but who has been with the Clintons during their White House days as Senior Policy Advisor to the First Lady and now serves as Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign Policy Director, summarized the new Clinton Health Care Plan 2008 from the old plan:
"The core issues here are preserving choice and expanding access. From the experience of 93-94, a president doesn't need to put out a 300-page framework, specifying every detail. We want to build a strong coalition with Congress to ensure that everyone has health insurance."
While Senator Clinton's new health care plan requires Congressional input and public feedback, this Clinton campaign is still staffed at the highest levels by former aides now returning from their exile in think tanks to hopefully retake the White House and pass a national health care reform bill. Unfortunately, some of the old bad habits of Clinton White House years of secrecy, press control, and arrogance remain as deeply embedded as ever.
The above piece was produced through OffTheBus, a citizen journalism project hosted at the Huffington Post and launched in partnership with NewAssignment.Net. For more information, read Arianna Huffington's project introduction. If you'd like to join our blogging team, sign up here. If you're interested in other opportunities, you can see the list here.
How do we finance universal health care the country? Universal health care can be financed an earnings or income deductible contribution or tax. It may even be a value added tax. The money goes to the single payer and providers can form all sorts of unions and business to provide health. The money for taking care of the presently uninsured comes from the loot that the insurance company CEO's, share holders , HMO's and their agents have been carting home. This is how the insurance companies have been stilling us dry. I am healthy and middle aged. I have been paying all this insurance premiums since age 33. I have never used it. When I get old and cannot work and fall sick I am already on Medicare. The "government" that is the tax payers foot my bill and all the money I pay to the insurance companies was just theirs to keep. So why not just pay the money to universal pool that will benefit everybody (managed by a quasi government organization like the Ports Authority of New York and New Jersey) and me when I finally need it? Senator Clinton's plan is just a continuing give away to the insurance companies and direct to crimininalize people.
The Clinton camp responds to complaints and Davis attacks them for doing so! The article is so biased as to be embarrassing. Like so much of Huffpo, Clinton is the target and if you can let fly an arrow of Any kind at her. Wooohoo! You get published!!
But what is more mind boggling is that after 6 years of stone walling, press handling and a wall of refusal to be responsive to a free press, Clinton is pilloried for doing so.
You're right. WE HATE CLINTON should be the deadline. And then none of us have to read any farther.
I appreciate your feeling that Hillary is a frequent target on this site. I'm personally an Obama supporter, but I understand that the tone of comments about Hillary is often vitriolic.
That said, please do not neglect the issue of secrecy and press handling. This is a CRUCIAL question.
People seriously discussing change in this country are seeking an end to the opacity and deception of the Bush White House. I believe Tinuviel and BevDavis both express this anger in their comments, though they take aim at the press' complacency and complicity in the face of being "handled."
This issue cuts across ALL policy debates. We must all hold the candidates we support accountable for setting a different tone. If we don't demand honesty now, we're not going to get it in 2008.
What's wrong with starting that conference "off the record" is the mindset it betrays. Secrecy for its own sake is a pernicious foe of democracy. It's fine that campaign PR relented in this case, but what might the outcome if the PR had the leverage of the WH behind it?
I'd like to see all campaigns disclose the identities of their policy teams publicly. Why should these decisions ever be made in the shadows?
Defend Hillary's plan and laud her ability, but don't ignore a dangerous tendency in her organization. Ask better of your candidate, so others might be persuaded to join your cause.
Sounds great to me. So the complaint is that they wanted it off the record, as many politicians do on many issues, and after complaining they LISTENED to the press and put it back on the record. Wow. So the complaint is that they listened to you? I'd like it if someone named a presidency where they didn't ask for off the record sessions. Of the Clinton years, the way they dealt with the press is probably the lowest of issues that we should be discussing.
So bizarre. I think every post and article on Huffington Post should read, from now on, "I HATE HILLARY CLINTON!" So we can move on.
The Clinton gang understands that the people who fall between the cracks of the system must simply be reduced in number untill their cries of help cannot be heard over the political din.
The problem for us all is that those people who fall between the cracks are you and me - at some stage in our lives.
BTW you can't really find Hilary's full plan at her web site as suggested by Beverly. There is a summary if you can find it, after scrolling through a long list of magazine and newspaper headlines prominently displayed, all trumpeting Hilarycare 2.0
It is typical Clinton political calculus, labyrinthian in its complexity and effect, designed to pay off the corporate/donor minotaur who lurks at the end of the tunnel.
It is the same in foreign policy. At the end of the day we will find ourselves in another war and a 2 trillion dollar health care system will take back seat to the urgency of dealing with some "evil" somewhere on the other side of the earth.
Hillary is a Fascist in the same World View context but created and now driven out of her own personal deep desire to rule, regardless.
So, I guess, for them, it will be business as usual.. extremely long waits for the lowest possible level of care (in many cases on par with developing countries), no dental at all, and outpatient services- such as psych or addicition therapy that is a joke- at best, even where it does exist.
Sorry Hillary, your plan doesn't impress me in the slightest. You are just shuffling the cards on the table; not actually doing something new and workable.
If nothing else that helps people who can pay those high premuims to keep Insurance Excutives in Private Jets get medical care.
This is not a plan, it's more flim-flam from the shyster.
When Clinton procalims that she is the great and powerful OZ, more people need to look behind the curtain.