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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (15392)	9/25/2007 1:17:32 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224749

Mrs Edwards:Clintons tanked '90s health plan for clout >BY CELESTE KATZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER September 25th 2007 Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential hopeful John Edwards, says Hillary Clinton ditched health care plan in 1990s to save 'political capital.' Hillary Clinton didn't just fail to get universal health care as First Lady, she and her husband, Bill, ditched it to stockpile political clout for other fights, Elizabeth Edwards told the Daily News. "It failed when the Clinton administration pulled this, when they said, 'We're not going to use any more political capital on this, on the fight for universal health care.' And that's an important part that Sen. Clinton leaves out," Edwards insisted during a wide-ranging interview with The News. "The stick-to-it-iveness, the determination to get it done when there was opposition both from the Republicans and from the entrenched insurance interests, that part wasn't there. "They lost the fight in 1993, pulled it out because they wanted to use their political capital to get NAFTA passed as opposed to universal health care in '94," added Edwards, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards. The North American Free Trade Agreement is loathed by many labor unions, which Clinton and John Edwards are aggressively courting, for shipping well-paying jobs outside the country. And even though Clinton boasts of having "the scars to show" for her failed health care fight, Elizabeth Edwards said the Democratic front-runner still doesn't get it. "She's wrong on how it is we get universal health care - and her own experience should have taught her that," she said. Clinton's campaign declined to respond to Edwards' broadsides. Edwards, 58, has drawn a bull's-eye on Clinton's back, having claimed that she is "more joyful" than the former First Lady and that her husband would be a better White House advocate for women. She said Clinton's new health care plan is a virtual copy of her husband's, with one difference being Clinton would invite lobbyists to the negotiating table. "We think that's the wrong direction to go," she said. "If you sit down and negotiate with them, you're going to give away something the American people need." Despite a diagnosis of incurable cancer, Edwards is hitting the hustings for her husband, the former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential candidate who's running on an anti-poverty platform - and trailing Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama in national polls. As a candidate's spouse, Edwards says she clearly can't compete with the near-magical fund-raising skills of former President Bill Clinton, and isn't trying. "I'm clearly not a former President. I don't have his charisma. Never will," she said. "What I do have is a really broad range of policies to talk about [and] a vision about what kind of President we need." She's solely focused on getting her husband to the White House. "This primary season is not about Feb. 5. This primary season is about November of 2008, and we have to get a nominee who can win. That's all."<