"Hillary's last health plan still looms large "
Dems, especially Clinton, try not to repeat her mistakes
September 25, 2007
Publication: Chicago Sun-Times
Author: Editorial
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It has clearly ticked off the other Democratic candidates that Hillary Clinton has been receiving so much positive press for her newly unveiled health care plan. There has been a sympathetic column from David Brooks of the New York Times, an appearance with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Situation Room," a polite interview with Melissa Block on NPR's "All Things Considered" and many other interviews.
Of course the attention is not because Clinton's health care plan is more brilliant than the other candidates' proposals; it comes from Clinton's spectacular failure as first lady to shepherd through a complicated and expensive health care plan during her husband's first term in office.
At that time, Dick Armey, the Republican Texas congressman, said Clinton's thoughts on universal health insurance "sound a lot like Karl Marx." Democrats were also deeply annoyed by Hillary's proposal. They felt they'd been left out of the process. And they were right. Hillary did shut them out and in the process turned herself into a symbolic voodoo doll to be pinned and prodded by gleeful Republicans.
Carl Bernstein notes in his book, A Woman in Charge, that "Instead of being the new administration's strongest suit, health care reform ... had become a rallying cry for all the Clintons' opponents and enemies."
So, this time around, interviewers wondered, how is she going to pull it off?
Clinton has tried to douse any suggestion of socialism by noting there will be no new government bureaucracy, that those who like their health plans can stick with them, that the funding for it will come from sources such as a rollback of President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and cost savings from using electronic files.
And this time she sounds like she has a grip on the issue, even convincing New York Times columnist Brooks that her "health care plan is a huge step forward from 1993. It's better than the G.O.P. candidates' plans (which don't exist)."
But John and Elizabeth Edwards yelled foul. Copycat, they cried, declaiming Clinton's health care plan as a rip-off of theirs, except that she wants to work with health insurers and pharmaceutical companies.
Edwards blames lobbyists from insurance companies, HMOs and pharmaceutical firms for the failure of Clinton's first effort. He says in a video posted on YouTube: "The lesson that Sen. Clinton seems to learn from her experience is that if you can't beat them you just join them."
"Hillary Clinton has come out with a health plan that's just like mine," Sen. Barack Obama told a group of voters in Ames, Iowa, last week. But he added "I'll be honest with you, they [the candidates' health plans] are all pretty similar."
And he is right. Except for a few differences in the amount it will cost, the decision whether or not to require universal coverage and other minor details, the health plans look pretty much the same.
But what else could anyone expect? Both Obama and Edwards carefully studied what Clinton did wrong last time around and were going to make darned sure they didn't make the same mistakes. But so did Clinton. She doesn't want to go down in flames a second time.
The other sticking point for Obama and Edwards -- who did not get the same intensity of coverage when they introduced their health plans -- is that Hillary is the leading candidate and has remained so consistently from the start.
To be sure, anything can happen until the primaries. As David Axelrod, Obama's media strategist, points out, former presidential candidate John Kerry came into Iowa in 2004 well behind and still won.
But if things continue as they have for the last six months, it looks as if Clinton may very well betheDemocrat who carries the banner for universal health insurance. You can hear the Republicans sharpening their knives already.
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