There was quite a pile-on here regarding Chelsea Clinton’s comments about Bernie’s Health Care “plan”. They were both accused of — well, basically being just horrible people for saying they were opposed to ending the current programs for a new framework that devolves authority to the states. Given some of the crazy right wing governments many states have, this doesn't seem like a very good idea.
So, do they have a valid point? Of course they do:
www.washingtonmonthly.com/…
General guideline — Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton are very intelligent and very well informed. If they say something, it is very likely to have a solid foundation in fact.
UPDATE: I initially posted this from my phone. Here’s a few key quotes from the piece:
Yesterday Hillary Clinton leveled an interesting charge against Bernie Sanders, who has said that he wants to implement single payer health care.
“His plan would take Medicare and Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Affordable Care Act health-care insurance and private employer health insurance and he would take that all together and send health insurance to the states, turning over your and my health insurance to governors,” Clinton said, naming the state’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad. “I don’t believe number one we should be starting over. We had enough of a fight to get to the Affordable Care Act. So I don’t want to rip it up and start over.”
And here is how the forthcoming plan was described on Sanders’ Senate web site:
Sanders’ bill, which he said he will soon introduce in the Senate, would set federal guidelines and strong minimum standards for states to administer single-payer health care programs.
Here is actual language in S. 1782 that is cause for concern:
It is the sense of the Senate that in order to provide high quality health care coverage for all Americans while controlling costs in order to make American companies more competitive, individual States should be given maximum flexibility in designing health care programs to improve the individual experience of care and the health of populations, and to reduce the per capita costs of care for each State.
Hillary Clinton jumped the gun a bit on this one, given that Sanders hasn’t released his proposal yet. But one has to wonder when he will finally get around to doing that. Until he does, it is difficult to say how much control his plan will cede to Republican governors. But based on his previous proposals, combined with how those governors handled Medicaid expansion, there is good reason to be concerned.
Emphasis was mine in the last graf, the author’s in the other grafs.
Was there some political motivation in Hillary’s comments, and Chelsea’s comments? I know it’s very hard to imagine that could happen in the midst of a heated primary contest, but just maybe — there was. Were they lying? Absolutely not. Misrepresenting Bernie’s plan? Hard to say, since it doesn’t actually exist yet!
Bernie is doing well in the polls and is running a very competitive race. If anyone thinks that he is, or should be, exempt from strong scrutiny of his proposals and critiques of his approach to policy and government, then they are in a bubble. This is the real world of politics, folks — sometimes the candidates will criticize their opponents. As long as it’s based on policy and not personal, it’s legitimate and part of the process.