Was a sitting president powerful enough to fight the Harry and Louise commercials in 1993?

[blm]

Or was the corpmedia MORE powerful and INVESTED in protecting their corporate allies in the health industry?

I would say corpmedia was MORE powerful.

And they have proven it time and again. They can protect and promote a lie and mute and edit the truth.

Funny thing - even many Democrats seem to forget sometimes what has happened in the past and hang their hats on myths just because the myth has been repeated so many times.

[Demeter]

1. The Plan Sucked---It Was Indefensible

It had no support, even among those who supported healthcare.

[bluestateguy]

2. it was an incomprehensible glop of policy wonkish nonsense

HillaryCare I allowed private insurance to continue to exist. The employer mandates made an enemy out of the business community, which also sank the plan.

Single payer would have been easier to defend, easier to explain and easier to implement. It also would save employers and businesses money, which would make them an ally, rather than an enemy, in the fight for universal health care.

[Capn Sunshine]

4. Out of curiousity

Does you version of single payer not allow insurance companies to continue to exist? Because the economic dislocation from such an event would be immeasurable.

I say, have single payer and leave the option open to having private insurance. It might bring back competition.

I certainly agree for-profit insurance is the biggest problem facing our healthcare system today. It's not "soaring costs", those are caused by insurance.

[bluestateguy]

5. No we need to phase them out

The new government program (Medicare for all, essentially) can put some of these dislocated employees of the private companies to work. As for those left unemployed, they will have to be re-trained--at taxpayer expense--to find another way to make a living. It is simply not honorable for someone to make their living by working for private health insurance companies: they make money by excluding people from coverage, denying claims and frankly, letting vulnerable people die.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. And there will still be a market for private insurance -

There will still be supplemental insurance, that will help cover lost wages, home care, that sort of thing.

There will still be 'luxury' insurance, so that you can be guaranteed a private room, a 24hr nurse, cosmetic surgery, etc.

And (unfortunately) I suspect a lot of rehab and drug treatment will not be fully covered by any national health plan, as well as mental health treatment, non-standard medical care (policy covers you going to Mexico for what the AMA doesn't approve in the US), that sort of thing. The medical insurance field would narrow, but it would not go away.

[papau]

6. In all variations Ins companies continue to exist - if its single payer - 90% of the staff stays as

the process claims - just as the insurance companies now do for Medicare - and the Health insurance part of the insurance company business sells supplemental policies - just as they now do for Medicare.

Indeed they may even be a market for super no limit policies for the supper rich that want their care in other countries.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Uh, how does Hillarycare II differ?

Mandated insurance? check
Employer mandates? check
Private insurance? check

[blm]

14. When Clintons are vulnerable after a RW attack they capitulate - and DON'T fight back

the way they claim.

[blm]

3. Yes, but many in the public didn't know the details and it's not like Harry-Louise

ads were against the plan for the same reasons some on the left were.

The point is that even as president, with all the power of the bully pulpit, the Clintons were NOT so powerful that everyone on the right is shaking in their boots at the thought of facing them. The corporate media controls the campaigns when it comes right down to it.

The same thing with the Clintons trashed the White House story - a complete lie. But it went on all the way to 9-11. Why? Because the corporate media made sure the lies were given volume that the truth would never get.

Same as Gore invented the internet and the Swiftlies about Kerry.

Now, somehow, Gore and Kerry are wimps and ONLY the Clintons know how to beat the RW media machine.

But they were actually no different and they had the bigger microphones and more camera time to make their cases - they didn't win the battles at the time the battles were being engaged.

[JDPriestly]

9. Clinton did not take the issue to the American people.

He was not as strong in defending his stance. Hillary got him into trouble because the group she set up to decide what Clinton's proposal would be was viewed as not properly organized under the law. I'm not sure what the controversy was, but the whole thing was botched in terms of handling the politics of the matter. It was the one thing Hillary was in charge of in the Clinton administration, and she botched it badly.

[blm]

10. The media triumphed over the Clinton 'machine'

The corpmedia triumphed over the Clinton machine many times, but the Clinton machine is claiming that they are the ONLY ones who can beat that machine now because they've done it before. Uh....when? Impeachment? The trashed WH story?

Bush and the GOP's numbers are down because of OTHER Dems pummeling Bush since 2002. And Katrina. And Iraq. And GOP congressional corruption and sex scandals.

When did Clintons ever oppose the Bush machine the last 7 years?

[JDPriestly]

12. Good points. Thanks, blm.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Clinton didn't have the PR savvy that Reagan did

When Reagan wanted to do something, he'd go on all the networks, give some distorted reason why the American people should support his plan, and ask them to badger their Congresscritters into supporting it.

I can't recall Clinton ever doing that.

Aside from that, the Clinton plan was an incomprehensible pastiche which, among other things, introduced the term "managed care" (i.e. "saving money" by giving insurance companies power to deny claims) to the American vocabulary. It was designed to be inoffensive to the insurance companies and they STILL sabotaged it.

[blm]

16. You're right - oddly MEEK of him, wouldn't you say? Or just generally uncommitted

to issues he claims to care about.

[UTUSN]

11. Honeybear, where the HECK have you been?!1 Here's love:

from me and CatWoman!1

[blm]

13. Aw.....

you mean you and CatWoman finally got a room? ;)

[asdjrocky]

17. Democratic President

Democratic House and Senate,

No health care for the American people. Sure, those Clinton's are some fighters.

[blm]

18. That's what I don't get about the 'myth' that's been perpetrated upon the Dem party

that ONLY Clintons can win because Bill is a 'genius', y'know?

The Republican rank and file and GOP lawmakers were convinced via the corpmedia that they needed Rove and the Bush machine to win, cuz Karl is a 'genius' y'know?


How has this worked out for the parties and for our country?