By now most have heard the “2013 Lie of the Year” as selected by PolitiFacts: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” President Obama said it some 20 times beginning in 2008, knowing it was a lie.
Now it has been revealed in the release of the first batch of the “Clinton Papers” that advisors to President Clinton were concerned about including a similar line about HillaryCare in the 1994 State-of-the-Union address.
President Clinton and Todd Stern (politico.com photo)
Todd Stern, a former top aide to President Clinton, warned of making such a statement asking, “can we get away with it?” and adding, “I am very worried about getting skewered for over-promising here on something we know we won’t deliver.”
Here’s the excerpt by Stern from the “Clinton Papers”:
“We have a line on p. 10 that says ‘You’ll pick the health plan and the doctor of your choice.’ This sounds great and I know that it’s just what people want to hear. But can we get away with it? Isn’t the whole thrust of our health plan to steer people toward cheaper, HMO-style providers? It’s one thing to say we’ll preserve your option to pick the doctor of your choice (recognizing that this will cost more), it’s quite another to appear to promise the nation that everyone will get to pick the doctor of his or her choice. And that’s exactly what this line does. I am worried about getting skewered for over-promising here on something we know full well we won’t deliver.
President Clinton went on to say, “You’ll pick the health plan and the doctor of your choice” in his address.
The papers revealed other interesting information regarding behind the scenes strategies to sell HillaryCare. In 1993, before becoming first lady, Hillary Clinton queried GOP leaders on how it could be sold as a financial benefit for the majority of Americans who were already insured, concerned about presenting a plan that wouldn’t match expectations.
Ira Magaziner (new.pv-insider.com photo)
Clinton advisors cautioned Ira Magaziner, the White House health policy guru, that “it is important to note that people and businesses will not see a decrease in premiums, despite the compression of costs.” Magaziner was quoted in one memo saying, “this is a tax, a hefty tax,” and warned President Clinton that “he could go down in history as the author of ‘$40 billion in new taxes’ if HillaryCare wasn’t spun deftly enough.” Another advisor cautioned, “avoid the word ‘mandate.’”
Chris Jennings (blackchristiannews.com photo)
It was also revealed that Chris Jennings, a Hillary Clinton aide who now works in the Obama administration, suggested it was important to get veterans on board in order to scare Republicans from voting “no” on HillaryCare saying, “design it in such a way that a vote against the Clinton health reform initiative is a vote against veterans.”
Fortunately, the Lewinsky scandal interrupted the effort to sell HillaryCare to Congress. And fortunately, the release of the Clinton papers has given us some important insight; not only to the lie and the behind the scenes health care plotting, but to the character of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
