The Disappearance of Hillary Clinton's Healthcare Platform

[Ferd Berfel]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/30/disappearance-hillary-clintons-healthcare-platform

What would happen if the media lifted the curtain on Clinton's healthcare platform and introduced any level of scrutiny to her proposed improvements on the Affordable Care Act?

In an extraordinary magic trick, performed on a national scale, Hillary Clinton's healthcare platform has been disappeared. While policy analysts, news anchors, and columnists have been engaged in an intense debate over Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” proposal, Clinton’s incremental alternative has escaped almost all scrutiny - even among those who say they prefer it.

Combining the election-season writings of our most prolific, liberal-leaning columnists at the New York Times, Huffington Post, Vox, Mother Jones, Politico, The American Prospect, etc. you’ll find dozens of articles critiquing Sanders's single-payer plan. None have mentioned a single Clinton healthcare proposal as a point of comparison - merely that she supports a philosphy of incremental reform.

Take Paul Krugman, a high-profile advocate of Clinton's approach to healthcare reform. Krugman has published two op-eds in the New York Times and five additional blog posts arguing that "[progressives] should seek incremental change on health care... and focus their main efforts on other issues - that is... Bernie Sanders is wrong about this and Hillary Clinton is right." In all seven pieces, Krugman focuses exclusively on Sanders's single-payer proposal and fails to mention even a single Clinton policy.

The disappearance of the Clinton healthcare platform has even been carried out by pollsters. The Kaiser Health Tracking Survey included a bizarre question in its February 2016 poll, which was widely cited in the press. Respondents were asked to pick one of four possible directions for the future of U.S. healthcare. Among the choices were "The U.S. should establish guaranteed universal coverage through a single government plan" and "Lawmakers should build on the existing health care law to improve affordability and access to care." Thirty-three percent of Democrats chose the single-payer option, while fifty-four percent chose the incremental option. The questions were clearly intended as stand-ins for the Sanders and Clinton healthcare proposals, but note that the single-payer option is a policy, whereas the incremental option mentions no actual policies, but asks respondents whether they support the (universally desirable) outcomes of improving affordability and access.

----------------------------

[tabasco]

1. Why is she keeping her $$$$$peeches to the bankers secret?

What is Clinton hiding?

If I prepared and made a speech, honestly discussing my policies and beliefs, I'd be proud to share it with anyone who wanted to read it.

[Babel_17]

2. Raises a good point as to substance (nt)

[Ferd Berfel]

3. obviously, if there wasn't something very damaging there

she would have released them.

Think Romney 42%

[thesquanderer]

4. It didn't disappear

It's still at https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

[BernieforPres2016]

5. A Mark Twain quote is a good analogy for Hillary and single payer healthcare

“If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don't like stoves.”