Hillary: If We Don't Start By Calling For "Universal Health Care" We'll Get Killed
An interesting moment: Hillary seeks to turn her health care loss to the GOP to her advantage -- and simultaneously draw a sharp distinction with Obama -- by saying that if we don't articulate the goal as "universal health care" at the outset, Dems will be ceding crucial turf to the GOP:
I think we as Democrats have to be willing to fight for universal healthcare. And what I concluded, when I was looking at this — because I got the same kind of advice, which was, "It's controversial, you'll run into all of this buzzsaw." And I said, "Been there, done that." But if you don't start by saying you're going to achieve universal healthcare, you will be nibbled to death.And I think it's imperative that as we move forward in this debate and into the campaign, that we recognize what both John Edwards and I did: That you have to bite this bullet — you have to say, "Yes, we are gonna try to get to universal healthcare."
Obama's response, in keeping with his message, is two-fold: No one will go un-insured under his plan, and, more important, the candidate who can best unite Dems, Republicans and independents behind a common goal is the one who will ultimately resolve the health care crisis.
Separately: Please register to comment above, where it says "log in." There are a great deal of goodies in it for you that we'll be sharing in the days ahead.
Does anyone really believe that Hillary's plan to mandate coverage has a snowball's chance in Hell of actually passing in the Senate? Or the House?
She knows it won't. She even hinted at that tonight. Yet she proposes such a plan anyway, to pander to the left. Obama, on the other hand, proposes a more realistic bill that does stand a chance to pass in both chambers of Congress.
In short: his realistic and honest plan loses out to a pandering lie. And yet Hillary (who failed to get ANYthing done on this issue in 1993) keeps saying that she is best qualified to get it done now. And so many people seem to give this issue to her: TPM, Huffingtonpost, even the New York Times.
It is such a fairy tale.
jmk
February 1, 2008 1:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
jmk: That really doesn't matter. What matters is that it be said, and that the national discussion change so that the concept is something everyone is aware of. The number one lesson of the far right's hijacking of the national discussion for the past fifteen years or more is that words matter. If a concept is to even have a chance of becoming a reality it needs to be defended in public as an idea and repeated and repeated until it cannot help but be considered. If anyone believes that anything realistic or honest can stand up, by those qualities alone, against a steamroller of lies and misinformation from those who want to bury it -- then they have not watched the far right noise machine or learned anything about how it works all these years. Note how one major policy after another has been sold on falsehood (the war being the most egregious example), and yet all the facts and honesty in the world mattered not one bit in the face of the storm.
Ideas need to be given life as ideas before we even have a chance of discussing the details of whether they can work. This is topsy-turvy I know, but it is how modern American politics work. I for one do not wish to have health care be subverted into dust because the Democratic candidates do not put their feet down and say that this is not an issue they will compromise on.
I'm not commenting on whether Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, is going to be able to pass universal health care. And clearly it matters if it is passable or not. But I want to state categorically that if the scope of the conversation doesn't change so that "universal health care" are words we are hearing in public every day, it will have no chance of happening whatsoever.
February 1, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
jmk: That really doesn't matter. What matters is that it be said, and that the national discussion change so that the concept is something everyone is aware of. The number one lesson of the far right's hijacking of the national discussion for the past fifteen years or more is that words matter. If a concept is to even have a chance of becoming a reality it needs to be defended in public as an idea and repeated and repeated until it cannot help but be considered. If anyone believes that anything realistic or honest can stand up, by those qualities alone, against a steamroller of lies and misinformation from those who want to bury it -- then they have not watched the far right noise machine or learned anything about how it works all these years. Note how one major policy after another has been sold on falsehood (the war being the most egregious example), and yet all the facts and honesty in the world mattered not one bit in the face of the storm.
Ideas need to be given life as ideas before we even have a chance of discussing the details of whether they can work. This is topsy-turvy I know, but it is how modern American politics work. I for one do not wish to have health care be subverted into dust because the Democratic candidates do not put their feet down and say that this is not an issue they will compromise on.
I'm not commenting on whether Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, is going to be able to pass universal health care. And clearly it matters if it is passable or not. But I want to state categorically that if the scope of the conversation doesn't change so that "universal health care" are words we are hearing in public every day, it will have no chance of happening whatsoever.
February 1, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
jmk: That really doesn't matter. What matters is that it be said, and that the national discussion change so that the concept is something everyone is aware of. The number one lesson of the far right's hijacking of the national discussion for the past fifteen years or more is that words matter. If a concept is to even have a chance of becoming a reality it needs to be defended in public as an idea and repeated and repeated until it cannot help but be considered. If anyone believes that anything realistic or honest can stand up, by those qualities alone, against a steamroller of lies and misinformation from those who want to bury it -- then they have not watched the far right noise machine or learned anything about how it works all these years. Note how one major policy after another has been sold on falsehood (the war being the most egregious example), and yet all the facts and honesty in the world mattered not one bit in the face of the storm.
Ideas need to be given life as ideas before we even have a chance of discussing the details of whether they can work. This is topsy-turvy I know, but it is how modern American politics work. I for one do not wish to have health care be subverted into dust because the Democratic candidates do not put their feet down and say that this is not an issue they will compromise on.
I'm not commenting on whether Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, is going to be able to pass universal health care. And clearly it matters if it is passable or not. But I want to state categorically that if the scope of the conversation doesn't change so that "universal health care" are words we are hearing in public every day, it will have no chance of happening whatsoever.
February 1, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
jmk: That really doesn't matter. What matters is that it be said, and that the national discussion change so that the concept is something everyone is aware of. The number one lesson of the far right's hijacking of the national discussion for the past fifteen years or more is that words matter. If a concept is to even have a chance of becoming a reality it needs to be defended in public as an idea and repeated and repeated until it cannot help but be considered. If anyone believes that anything realistic or honest can stand up, by those qualities alone, against a steamroller of lies and misinformation from those who want to bury it -- then they have not watched the far right noise machine or learned anything about how it works all these years. Note how one major policy after another has been sold on falsehood (the war being the most egregious example), and yet all the facts and honesty in the world mattered not one bit in the face of the storm.
Ideas need to be given life as ideas before we even have a chance of discussing the details of whether they can work. This is topsy-turvy I know, but it is how modern American politics work. I for one do not wish to have health care be subverted into dust because the Democratic candidates do not put their feet down and say that this is not an issue they will compromise on.
I'm not commenting on whether Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, is going to be able to pass universal health care. And clearly it matters if it is passable or not. But I want to state categorically that if the scope of the conversation doesn't change so that "universal health care" are words we are hearing in public every day, it will have no chance of happening whatsoever.
February 1, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
jmk: That really doesn't matter. What matters is that it be said, and that the national discussion change so that the concept is something everyone is aware of. The number one lesson of the far right's hijacking of the national discussion for the past fifteen years or more is that words matter. If a concept is to even have a chance of becoming a reality it needs to be defended in public as an idea and repeated and repeated until it cannot help but be considered. If anyone believes that anything realistic or honest can stand up, by those qualities alone, against a steamroller of lies and misinformation from those who want to bury it -- then they have not watched the far right noise machine or learned anything about how it works all these years. Note how one major policy after another has been sold on falsehood (the war being the most egregious example), and yet all the facts and honesty in the world mattered not one bit in the face of the storm.
Ideas need to be given life as ideas before we even have a chance of discussing the details of whether they can work. This is topsy-turvy I know, but it is how modern American politics work. I for one do not wish to have health care be subverted into dust because the Democratic candidates do not put their feet down and say that this is not an issue they will compromise on.
I'm not commenting on whether Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, is going to be able to pass universal health care. And clearly it matters if it is passable or not. But I want to state categorically that if the scope of the conversation doesn't change so that "universal health care" are words we are hearing in public every day, it will have no chance of happening whatsoever.
February 1, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink