Not to be a Buzz Kill, but didn't HRC want Medicare at 55, and add a Public Option for any age? nt

[TheBlackAdder]

[MaryMagdaline]

1. Yeah but her emails

[LakeArenal]

2. So did Pelosi when she was elected.

But it’s just not feasible for now.

Everyone is moving that way. But we have to get the presidency first.

[Laelth]

3. We'll take what we can get.

But you’re right. HRC has always been more liberal than she is given credit for. Her 1994 health care plan was WAY BETTER than the ACA.

Hillary deserves a lot more credit than she actually gets.

-Laelth

[2naSalit]

4. [phone]!!

[LaurenOlimina]

26. yes.

[comradebillyboy]

29. Hillary is a great American. I have admired her for many years.

[Codeine]

5. But warmonger or something. nt

[ismnotwasm]

6. Yes.

Details...

[TEB]

7. Yes

But remember she was a nasty woman

[Celerity]

8. Hillary Clinton Takes a Step to the Left on Health Care

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/us/politics/hillary-clinton-health-care-public-option.html

For months during the Democratic presidential nominating contest, Hillary Clinton has resisted calls from Senator Bernie Sanders to back a single-payer health system, arguing that the fight for government-run health care was a wrenching legislative battle that had already been lost. But as she tries to clinch the nomination, Mrs. Clinton is moving to the left on health care and this week took a significant step in her opponent’s direction, suggesting she would like to give people the option to buy into Medicare.

“I’m also in favor of what’s called the public option, so that people can buy into Medicare at a certain age,” Mrs. Clinton said on Monday at a campaign event in Virginia. Mr. Sanders calls his single-payer health care plan “Medicare for all.” What Mrs. Clinton proposed was a sort of Medicare for more.

The Medicare program covers Americans once they reach 65. Beneficiaries pay premiums to help cover the cost of their coverage, but the government pays the bulk of the bill. Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion was that perhaps younger Americans, “people 55 or 50 and up,” could voluntarily pay to join the program.

She made the remarks as she continues to face a determined challenge on the left from Mr. Sanders, forcing her to essentially fight a two-front war as she seeks to turn her attention to Donald J. Trump and the general election. While Mr. Sanders trails by a substantial number of delegates, his effect continues to be felt in the race as he pressures Mrs. Clinton to adopt more progressive positions.

snip

[The Magistrate]

12. This Is The Usual 'Sanders-Centric' Media Blather, Ma'am

This was part of the 2008 campaign:



"The health care reform proposals developed by the campaigns of Barack Obama in May 2007 and Hillary Clinton in September 2007 also included health insurance exchanges with a public option."

"The three leading Democratic candidates’ versions of the public option were quite similar. They varied primarily with respect to who was eligible to purchase through the exchange, and whether the exchange was administered at the federal or state level."



https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0363

[Celerity]

13. Normally I agree with you, but I think you would have a hard time convincing the Sanderites the NYT

is

'Sanders-Centric'

I am aware that she deffo (as did Obama) pushed for the Public Option in 2008

Also, my reply was simply meant to show that the OP was correct at the end of the day, albeit with some nuance that I shall endeavour here to explain.

She did not initially push it initially to any great degree last go-round, (and to her great credit she did re-emphasise it later on) but I would be remiss to not point out that her new form of public option she then put up was on a state by state level (thus Red States could block it by not opting in), and thus does not resemble Biden's in 2020.

I also want to state I am NOT taking Bernie's side in any of this. his Medicare for All will never pass, not for decades, if ever.

I am just giving (or attempting to give) a more fully fleshed-out timeline and detailed backgrounding

Sometimes, at least to me, any form of detailed, complex, multi-dimensional colloquy (NOT saying from you at all Sir do this in the slightest) seems to lost on the all or nothing, 100% slam anything (even if it involves problematic statements not backed up by facts) or anyone a person disagrees with into the ground. I am simply incapable of operating at that level, much to my detriment at times here, unfortunately.

Also, as I have said repeatedly (and given a lot of detail as to why I think that way) I do not believe the public option will pass, even if we take back the Senate by a 51-49 or 52-48 margain and hold the House, although the coronaviral nightmare may have given it a FAR better chance of finally passing, IF we play our cards right.

So now, back to Sec. Clinton (your link was from 2010, which was not the timeframe I was discussing):


Hillary Clinton Once Again Backs the Public Option. (I bolded a part in this to show that this article is hostile to Sander's MFA, and none of my articles come from Sanders fanboys/girls)

https://slate.com/business/2016/02/hillary-clinton-once-again-backs-the-public-option-what-took-so-long.html

Hillary Clinton is once again embracing the public option. As Politico noticed Monday, the presidential candidate has added a section to her website stating that she still supports the concept of creating a government-run health plan to compete against private insurers, which she also backed backed during her 2008 campaign.

The public option was a deeply popular idea among progressives during the legislative battles over the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010. Advocates argued it would lower costs and possibly serve as a bridge toward a single-payer system. The proposal also polled extremely well with the public. But it died rather brutally thanks to opposition from more conservative Senate Democrats, including Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, and independent Joe Lieberman. (In its place, we got Obamacare’s nonprofit health care co-ops, which seem to have been a flop so far.)

Given liberals’ infatuation with the public option, the most surprising thing about Clinton’s move is that it didn’t happen sooner. (Journalists have been wondering for a while why she hasn’t been pushing the idea.) Like much of her policy agenda, Clinton’s health care platform has suffered from the lack of a decent marketing hook. Everybody knows that Bernie Sanders is in favor of a national single-payer program, which, while both politically and logistically impracticable, is at least pretty easy for voters to understand and maybe get excited about. Clinton, on the other hand, talks about using the existing framework of the Affordable Care Act to push the country toward universal coverage and offers an array of targeted, wonk-approved ideas to do so, none of which are especially catchy. (Bulking up premium tax credits for people who buy insurance on the Obamacare exchanges, as she’d like to do, would be really, really helpful, but proposing it won’t exactly fill a stadium with cheering college kids.)

Throwing her arms around the public option should help Clinton with that problem. When Sanders talks about Medicare for all, Clinton can now talk about finally making the public option a reality, which might be the tiniest bit more plausible. Obviously, a Republican Congress would never abide. But Clinton suggests she’ll try to scoot around Capitol Hill by working “with interested governors, using current flexibility under the Affordable Care Act, to empower states to establish a public option choice.” This is an interesting approach—liberals occasionally talked about the idea of state-based public options in the years immediately after Obamacare’s passage—that would presumably take advantage of the ACA’s innovation waivers. Whether it would do much to advance the cause of health reform is hard to say—state versions of the public option would enroll fewer patients than a federal plan and thus would have less power to negotiate with health care providers and save money. But progress is progress.

snip



Hillary Clinton re-embraces the public option for health care

https://qz.com/622181/can-hillary-clinton-really-cover-the-last-10-with-obamacare/

snip

One answer for Clinton is a public health insurance option: a popular progressive solution to drive down health care costs that Clinton enthusiastically supported while running for president in 2008. It was not included in her health care policy roll-out—at least at first. After Quartz asked last week why the idea didn’t merit a mention by Clinton’s campaign website, it was updated to reference the public option. ”We regularly update our website with additional details on Hillary Clinton’s policy positions,” a spokesperson said.

During a January debate, Clinton said that “even when the Democrats were in charge of the Congress, we couldn’t get the votes for [the public option].” And previously, her aides have been diffident, with national spokesperson Brian Fallon brushing aside a query about the public option on MSNBC—”Sure. Public option, sure.”—to explain that Clinton and Sanders agree about the need to cover everyone.

snip

During the Obamacare debate, some saw a public insurance option as a good halfway point to maximize the efficiency of single-payer without driving insurance companies out of business. The idea’s eventual failure was celebrated by some health care wonks who saw it as a distraction from the more important parts of health insurance reform.

Ezekiel Emanuel, a physician who chairs the health policy department at the University of Pennsylvania and was one of the White House advisers behind the Affordable Care Act, told Quartz that a strong public option was too threatening to insurers, while the non-profit health care co-ops that were created as their substitute have largely failed. “In lieu of a public option, we ended up creating the co-ops, they’re not doing great,” said Emanuel, citing a variety of reasons for their failures, from a lack of sufficient funding to poor rules and mismanagement. He declined to comment on who he was backing in the presidential race.

An attempt to revive the debate over the public option would ”get back into the same dilemma that sort of torpedoed that before: using the Medicare price system [which is cheaper than what insurance companies pay], they have an advantage. If you don’t use a Medicare pricing system, why is it any better than the insurance companies we have out there?” Emanuel added.

snip




Clinton revives support for health care 'public option'

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/hillary-clinton-health-care-bernie-sanders-219643

Hillary Clinton wants to bring back the public option, offering a competing vision to Bernie Sanders’ support for a more progressive health care system.

Clinton's campaign has updated its website to note her continued support for the government-run health plan that was dropped from Obamacare during the law's drafting. The idea was popular among progressives who prefer a single-payer plan -- like the one Bernie Sanders is touting.

Clinton supported the public option in her 2008 presidential campaign, and during the drafting of the Affordable Care Act a year later, Congress debated allowing a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. However, the public option was eliminated from the legislation because of objections from moderate Senate Democrats who opposed a greater government role in providing health care. But Clinton has hardly referenced her previous support for the idea during the 2016 campaign, and instead has called for building on President Barack Obama’s health care law.

A new version of Clinton’s campaign website suggests she won't try to push the public option through Congress, but instead will work with governors using existing flexibility under Obamacare "to empower states to establish a public option choice." That may be a reference to a waiver program taking effect in 2017 that lets states assert greater control over their health care systems. It appears that the campaign updated its website's health care platform in the past week to note Clinton's support for the public option.

snip



Hillary Clinton Revives The Public Option -- But As An Experiment
(Forbes is very anti-Bernie, and pretty anti-public option as well)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2016/03/03/hillary-clinton-revives-the-public-option-but-as-an-experiment/#436236b24414

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has revived recently the idea of adding a “public option” to the Exchanges. Apparently, at least for now, she would permit or perhaps encourage each state to create a publicly operated insurer that would augment private insurers in selling health insurance policies to individuals. Her website suggests she would not mandate a public option at the federal level -- at least for now -- or somehow force the states to create one. All of that would require her to push legislation through Congress. The "encouraged" public option, by contrast, could be implemented by cooperation between states and the federal executive without a need for any revisions to the Affordable Care Act. As set forth here, adoption of Hillary's public option is likely to disrupt insurance markets and healthcare rather than improve them, but it is not such an obvious Frankenstein of an experiment that conservatives ought to stand in the way of its voluntary adoption by states beguiled by the program's apparent benevolence.

While it is hard to imagine liberals objecting to candidate Clinton's idea except insofar as it displaces more fundamental reform, her proposal places two conservative ideas in tension: federalism and free markets. On the one hand, conservatives might well say, if a state is foolish enough to attempt a public option, that's up to the democratic processes of each state. It won't have any great effect on other states and, besides, the little state laboratories might actually evolve something that could work. On the other hand, conservatives might say that public operated insurance companies have a pretty miserable record in other markets -- anyone want to look at the finances of the National Flood Insurance Program or some of the issues faced by Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Corporation or Texas's Windstorm Insurance Association? Their insertion into the market is likely to kill off private competition and leave consumers with an inefficient, expensive program. Indeed, those conservatives might suspect that, as some have alleged with respect to Obamacare itself, the public option is a "see-we-tried-a-compromise" plan whose inevitable failure paves the way to liberal Nirvana: a single payor system.

To understand the merits and deficiencies of the public option, let’s harken back to the end of the pre-ACA period when Congress and others debated how to reform American healthcare Recall the ideological premise motivating proponents of the constellation of ideas that coalesced in what became the Affordable Care Act: The main problem with American healthcare lies in the insurance market and the lupine insurers who run it. The main way to get individual healthcare expenses under control and provide greater access to healthcare is to make insurance cheaper through insurance subsidies, prohibitions on medical underwriting and greater insurer competition through open markets.

And, here is where the public option makes its entrance. We can’t necessarily trust private insurers to compete or provide the benefit packages many consumers desire. Private insurers will spend money on whatever underwriting survives the new law; they will "waste money" on marketing; and they need -- gasp -- profits. So, we need a public insurer that will act in the public interest and has enough market power to beat down powerful providers such as hospitals and they-who-shall-not-be-named -- pharmaceutical companies.

snip



and there are a LOT more from places that are not in the tank for Bernie, then, or now, there is not attempt at a Sanderite re-write from them or me


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/public-option-makes-comeback-clintons-endorsement

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/07/clinton-reaffirms-support-for-public-option.html

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/09/politics/hillary-clinton-health-care-public-option-bernie-sanders/index.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-to-back-public-option-for-health-care/

[The Magistrate]

18. No Accusation Intended, Ma'am

Merely that my memory had been jogged, and I thought it best to provide external confirmation for my recollection. The idea of a public option has indeed been around for some time, and was a part of the 2008 primary contest between Sec. Clinton and President Obama.

Describing the media narrative as 'Sanders-centric' means to me something quite different from 'being in the tank' for Sanders.

'In the tank' is active support, booming one candidate against another, actively denigrating one candidate relative to another.

In most elections, there quickly emerges a sort of herd consensus among journalists, which sets a narrative frame within which events and commentary will be framed. In the 2000 election, for a neutral example, coverage quickly took a shape within which Mr. Bush was a likeable, down to earth sort of fellow, who accordingly would be preferred by voters over the stiff, unnatural fellow who was his opponent, Mr. Gore. Just about every event during the campaign was described in terms which fit this narrative framework --- a crowd gathered by Mr. Gore came despite his woodenness, a crowd came flocking to see Mr. Bush. That sort of shading is far from being 'in the tank', even reporters unlikely to vote themselves for Mr. Bush worked within this pattern in describing events of the campaign.

Sanders from his start in 2016 offered the press pack an enticing framework --- a rugged iconoclastic challenger comes seemingly out of nowhere to challenge an aspiring Queen, and when he does, he does that most magical thing of all for the press, he exceeds their expectations for his performance. The result was that a narrative frame was set up which overstated both Sanders' actual support, and overstated his novelty as well. Proposals from Sanders that were not much in advance of the usual for the Democratic Party, if at all in advance of the usual proposals of Democrats, were presented as newly minted and original with Sanders, and the gap between what many Democrats have proposed, and what in a given political situation could actually be enacted as law, was closed over, with contrasts drawn between the aspirations of Sanders and what was achieved as legislation presented as differences of policy and intent, rather than the differences between theory and practice unavoidable in a contingent circumstance.

This narrative frame largely carried over into coverage of the initial stages of the current campaign. Journalists and commentators overstated Sanders support and overstated the draw to the left he exerted on the Democratic Party, and overstated by a wide margin Sanders' ability to mobilize a 'new generation' of voters. They did not do this because they supported Sanders, or were 'in the tank' for Sanders, but because the narrative frame they were used to employing from four years previous was most compatible with this, and promised into the bargain a real horse-race, with ups and downs and new developments and ever so many shiny objects emerging from the melee.

Had journalists drilled down into what the actual state of play with Democratic primary voters was, they would have understood things differently. They would have seen the overwhelming sentiment among people who would vote in Democratic primaries was dislike, even hatred for Sanders, and that the support for every other candidate embodied rejection of Sanders: it was simply that no single candidate was the sole vehicle for this rejection. They would have seen that among Democratic voters, repair and extension of President Obama's achieved Affordable Care Act was the most popular policy by far, and that the 'Medicare for All' proposal was merely sloganeering. Again, they did not do this because they were 'in the tank' for Sanders, and trying to distort presentation of facts in his direction, it is just that their narrative frame gave them no particular reason to look for such things, since they already knew Sanders was pulling the Party to the left, had great support for his policies, and was energizing new voters in great numbers. Why look into things further?

That is what I mean by 'Sanders-centric' coverage. A sort of herd tendency to over-rate his importance, his support and his novelty, frozen into journalism years ago. Though events have overthrown it, and made its falsity apparent, it remains the default position, and can still be seen in coverage of developments such as those detailed in the header post of this discussion.

[Celerity]

23. That is a fair critique, I find no fault with it.

I wanted Biden to run, then switched to O'Malley, and ended up voting for Sec. Clinton (obviously.)

I knew we were in for trouble from a combo of 3 things (one long forgotten, the other 2 are legendary.)

1. The DNC leaks (Russia)

2. (the long forgotten one) The massive (in multiple cases and 22% overall) Obamacare rate increases (when they were leaked a couple days early (the official release was Monday, October 24th, but the rumours mills were flying in the market on Friday, and then gained steam on Saturday and Sunday) I saw an erosional trend in the polls, and I have NO clue why they could not have been delayed for a few weeks until after the election, unless there is some law I am unfamiliar with in terms of the timing of disclosure) that came out days before the coup de grâce which was...

3. Comey's stab in the back on October 28

[The Magistrate]

24. Thank You, Ma'am

I would add two more.

Overconfidence, in which I confess I shared. This must have had the effect of depressing the vote, not just by people feeling it safe to cast a 'protest vote', but by people feeling little urgency to turn out, so that inevitably some did not who otherwise might have. Wife and I had a polling place near a restaurant specializing in pie, after voting we each had a piece (silk for her and blueberry for me) and then sat for a while on a bench with autumn leaves at our feet, certain of the outcome. We call it 'the last happy day"....

Many people just couldn't imagine how bad it might get, couldn't appreciate just how unsuitable for office this cheap grifting thug was. Despite our Constitution being written, and its text revered, so much of the function of our political institutions is dependent on custom and respect for form. People do not realize just how much depends on the unspoken assumption of the founders that no one but a gentleman would ever hold public office. So many just could not conceive what might be done with the Presidency by a cheating scoundrel who respects nothing but his own gratification, sees no good in the world save lining his pockets, and who actively wants to be cruel and vicious as a species of enjoyment, now that his sexual powers have ebbed utterly (a common side effect of a medication he consumes for his hair) .

[Celerity]

25. Absolutely spot on Sir, I once again am in total agreement with you. I value your posts a lot.

You are an example of fairplay.

[TheBlackAdder]

11. Yeah, like 2016 was because of her position on Medicare.

[The Magistrate]

10. She Did, Sir

What is now being touted in some quarters as Mr. Biden 'moving towards Sanders' is actually less than established Democratic policy.

[TheBlackAdder]

17. If Biden wants to fuck this up, then he can ignore to follow the political precident of Reagan-Bush.

.

Back in 1980, the Reagan & Bush camps were bitter rivals, more so that the Sanders and Clinton camps of 2016. I mean they fucking hated each other so much that a schism emerged that threatened to destroy the majority of down-ballot elections. And this is even after the start of the Moral Majority and the established Phyllis Schlafly movements had coalesced a lot of religious groups. The GOP was in dire straights.

Instead of Reagan and Bush keeping the fight going, they joined forced and that led to a 12-year Republican presidency. They still fucking hated each other for many years.

A critical and perhaps a politically fatal error would be for Biden to pick someone with similar political views or a relatively unknown VP pick. He needs to bring the entire party together and also attract a lot of Independents and left-leaning Republicans. If he does that, no amount of GOP or Russian fuckery will surmount that. If he chooses to play it safe, then he risks the whole enchilada.

.

[The Magistrate]

19. Well, At Least You Did Not Put Up A Big Picture Of Trump, Sir

Baby steps....


https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213251787#post12

[TheBlackAdder]

21. I was thinking about it.

.

Some have their shtick and sig lines. Some even mimic Trump's style.

.

[The Magistrate]

22. By All Means, Sir --- Knock Your Self Out, Bigly, In Fact, If You Wish...

[Wanderlust988]

33. Hmm...let me guess...you want him to pick AOC or Nina Turner?

[TheBlackAdder]

34. FAIL ⬆️

[mcar]

14. She did

I'm so old I remember when she tried to get us decent universal healthcare when she was 1st lady and Gingrich threw a hissy.

[Walleye]

27. Yes. How dare Pres. Clinton use an unelected family member in something that important.

[mcar]

30. Sandal!!11

[Hortensis]

15. Buzz kill was the 2016 tragedy, and the more exciting for it.

We're finally going to be able to do it.

[Mariana]

16. I'm pretty sure everyone on DU voted for HRC. nt.

[LuckyCharms]

20. Yes, but she killed babies after they were out of the womb until age 15.

[Doreen]

28. Yes, I do remember.

I however think she was planning on doing what Obama was trying to do. Start somewhere and improve with time. She has the realistic knowledge that health care can not be improved over night or even in one year.

[ffr]

31. We couldn't be further from that right now on this divergent path.

WTF is happening to our once great nation? We're in free-fall.

[betsuni]

32. Yes, but something about Wall Street.

On "The View" yesterday, two panelists were going on and on about universal health care being Bernie's idea, Bernie's proposal, he "made his point loud and clear, thank you, Bernie!" and being ahead of the curb, that health care shouldn't be tied to employment.

Whoopi Goldberg said, Hillary Clinton has been fighting for universal health care for years and years and years. She's glad Bernie's saying it, but he's not the first one. She doesn't get the credit.

And before someone says that who cares who's first with an idea, no. Democrats were saying health is a right and not a privilege since the '70s (Ted Kennedy), it's a signature Democratic issue. Don't erase history and reality. Sanders seems to actually believe that this reality doesn't exist and he is the only one who wants universal health care. He tells us that the Democratic Party is corrupt and ideologically bankrupt, same as Republicans. Unacceptable. NO.