The boy can't help it: Bill Clinton talking major bullshit again

[BeyondGeography]

Just showed a clip on Hardball, with Bill saying voters have a clear choice:

"One candidate who will provide health care for all Americans and another candidate who doesn't think it's that important."

Fortunately, Sen. Barbara Boxer was there for immediate debunking and said "the truth of the matter" is that universal health care is important to both of these candidates, they just have different approaches on how to get there. She then gave very good brief descriptions of each plan.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

1. "another candudate who doesn't think it's that important"

I think he's talking about McCain ;)

Way to spin, Bill.

[Tellurian]

4. Barbara Boxer is a sellout to Coal companies..

she turned long ago..forget her!

[cali]

19. prove it. if you're going to talk smack, post a link. n/t

[karynnj]

36. Barbara Boxer is the head of the environmental committtees

They will have programs in her bill to have demos built to test vearious methods to capture and sequester carbon from coal plants. If one or more of the tested ways is feasible, it will have an enormous impact. The US and China have huge coal resources. In China they are building a coal plant a week. If we develop the technology, it can be used here and also sold to other countries. It is unrealistic to think use of coal will instantly stop.

[Clarkansas]

2. I have lost a lot of respect for the Clintons since they started running for President again

I hope we don't nominate them.

[tridim]

3. Jebus Bill, please knock it off with the lying. It doesn't fool anyone.

This is all very sad to me because I used to like the guy (before he became Poppy's BFF). It seems like every few days he gives me another reason to dislike him.

STOP LYING!

[Tellurian]

7. Bill Clinton is absolutely correct..

Obama knows his plan leaves over 70 million people uninsured. He's had time to alter his plan. He hasn't..red flag flying don't trip over it as you defend the indefensible.

[Bread and Circus]

9. Please, no one with half a brain would believe the bullshit

you are spewing. As it stands now we only have 47,000,000 uninsured and you are saying Obama will nearly double that figure?

Go have a circle jerk of false information with your lying fakeoutrageanists and do the rest of the world a favor.

Even Krugman, asshole that he is of late, doesn't tout bullshit like that.

[Tellurian]

14. Try to catch UP..Krugman disputes your BS

Paul Krugman.

Feb 4 2008

But as I’ve tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a big difference between the candidates’ approaches. And new research, just released, confirms what I’ve been saying: the difference between the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal health coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short.

Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton’s would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling Mr. Obama’s — at only slightly higher cost.

Let’s talk about how the plans compare.

Both plans require that private insurers offer policies to everyone, regardless of medical history. Both also allow people to buy into government-offered insurance instead.

And both plans seek to make insurance affordable to lower-income Americans. The Clinton plan is, however, more explicit about affordability, promising to limit insurance costs as a percentage of family income. And it also seems to include more funds for subsidies.

But the big difference is mandates: the Clinton plan requires that everyone have insurance; the Obama plan doesn’t.

Mr. Obama claims that people will buy insurance if it becomes affordable. Unfortunately, the evidence says otherwise.

After all, we already have programs that make health insurance free or very cheap to many low-income Americans, without requiring that they sign up. And many of those eligible fail, for whatever reason, to enroll.

An Obama-type plan would also face the problem of healthy people who decide to take their chances or don’t sign up until they develop medical problems, thereby raising premiums for everyone else. Mr. Obama, contradicting his earlier assertions that affordability is the only bar to coverage, is now talking about penalizing those who delay signing up — but it’s not clear how this would work.

So the Obama plan would leave more people uninsured than the Clinton plan. How big is the difference?

To answer this question you need to make a detailed analysis of health care decisions. That’s what Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T., one of America’s leading health care economists, does in a new paper.

Mr. Gruber finds that a plan without mandates, broadly resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700.

That doesn’t look like a trivial difference to me. One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured.

As with any economic analysis, Mr. Gruber’s results are only as good as his model. But they’re consistent with the results of other analyses, such as a 2003 study, commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, that compared health reform plans and found that mandates made a big difference both to success in covering the uninsured and to cost-effectiveness.

And that’s why many health care experts like Mr. Gruber strongly support mandates.

Now, some might argue that none of this matters, because the legislation presidents actually manage to get enacted often bears little resemblance to their campaign proposals. And there is, indeed, no guarantee that Mrs. Clinton would, if elected, be able to pass anything like her current health care plan.

But while it’s easy to see how the Clinton plan could end up being eviscerated, it’s hard to see how the hole in the Obama plan can be repaired. Why? Because Mr. Obama’s campaigning on the health care issue has sabotaged his own prospects.

You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the “Harry and Louise” ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.

If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.

If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities, here’s what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance — nobody knows how big — that we’ll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won’t happen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[Bread and Circus]

17. I'm sorry 70,000,000 just doesn't pass the smell test...

And Krugman doesn't know as much about rendering healthcare as he thinks he does.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bread and Circus]

41. It sounds like you have mental health issues. Go seek help.

And chill out. This is just a discussion board for criminey sake.

[donheld]

30. Krugman's been a shill for Hillary for some time now

Quite disappointing.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JackORoses]

12. your facts are incorrect. does your mouth taste bad from all the BS it spews?

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tridim]

21. I'm not defending anything or anyone.

I'm just upset that a man I used to respect is lying about his wife's opponent.

[karynnj]

39. He has explained why he initially didn't want mandates

The number is 15 million. It is also not true that everyone will have insurance WITH the mandates. In my state, you have to have auto insurance to drive - but, look at your insurance, it has insurance in case you are hit by an uninsured driver. He sketched out what might happen whan an uninsured person had an emergency - they would need to pay some back premiums to get in.

In a way that is the parallel question to what HRC was asked - how do you enforce it? These are the questions on the edges.

I think that no matter who is President, mandates or no mandates will depend on which can get adequate support in Congress - and answering those edge questions will be the hard part.

[Bread and Circus]

5. Jesus Christ Bill Clinton...please just do us all a favor and go

get fucked...

What an asshole.

I'd turn my back to Bill Clinton before I'd shake his hand.

I watched the entire rally w/ Michelle Obama in LA yesterday and she didn't say one negative thing about Hillary nor did she stoop so low to spread falsehood like this.

But there he goes again.

He will pay for it, just like he did last time.

[Tellurian]

16. Take your own advise ...you add nothing .. come back when you grow up!

[Bread and Circus]

43. aww, you hurt my feelings... and it's advice, not "advise"

:crazy:

[Cha]

51. Michelle and Obama said when they

got into politics they wanted to make it better than they found it.

She also said yesterday(about dirty politics) that, "if you want to change it you can't become a part of it"

[Didereaux]

6. ONE MORE TIME! Obama does NOT have universal health care plan! PERIOD

[BooScout]

25. They don't understand

that universal health care means EVERYONE is included.

[bvar22]

45. One More Time: Hillary does NOT have a Universal HealthCare Plan.

Hillary has a MANDATORY Private "For Profit" Health INSURANCE Plan,

NOT

a Universal Health Care Plan!

BIG difference.

[creeksneakers2]

47. You've been told that isn't true

Why do you keep repeating it?

[Proud2BAmurkin]

8. One candidate has conceded the issue out of the gate

[Bake]

10. The MAN was POTUS. Not "boy." Show some respect, please.

I can only imagine what would happen should someone refer to your candidate as "boy."

Bake

[Barack_America]

11. Unfortunately, he is quickly eroding the respect that status used to afford him. n/t

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DURHAM D]

26. Its on the 3 x 5 flash cards their leader made for them. n/t

[tridim]

28. You might want to read the DU rules Tellurian

You've broken several in about 5 different posts in this thread.

[Vinca]

13. I've been pondering the health "care" debate today and it's all

bullshit . . . from both candidates. They may decide universal health "care" is a wonderful idea, but has anyone talked to big insurance? UnitedHealth, BC/BS, AETNA and all the rest of them would be the ones providing the universal health "care." That would require said insurance companies to decrease their profits significantly. Premiums would have to be lowered, individuals currently blacklisted would have to be covered. For starters, that goes against their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. Do the health "care" plans include a provision that the U.S. government make up the difference in the large pile of cash they might have made? If so, it would be ludicrous to enter into this type of arrangement and much more economical to have single payer, universal, true health care. After all, what is an insurance company? It's a payment service (or, more likely, a denial of payment service). The insurance companies don't hire the doctors or own the hospitals. If we can put a man on the moon, can't we process a claim for health services? That's the only way to make it affordable. Just saying . . . I don't know why we're even fighting over this one.

[Tellurian]

22. See why at post #14

A Vote for Obama is a Vote against Universal Health Care Coverage!

[Vinca]

27. Both plans require that private insurers offer policies to everyone -

that's what #14 says. Do you honestly think the CEOs of these money machine insurance companies are going to bow down and take this? Do you think the politicians whose pockets they line will allow it? Both plans are bullshit. Neither is "universal" because neither will happen.

[thoughtcrime1984]

34. Maybe if the Ins. Cos. resist, that would open the door wider for single payer

The corporate greed, especially when pertaining to Americans' health, must be severely curbed.

[Vinca]

35. Good point. Maybe it's the only way to get to a show down. nt

[thoughtcrime1984]

37. I think Dennis had it right all along

Single-payer is the way to go, BUT we would have extreme difficulty going directly from where we are at right now directly to that style. The bloated cost of health care would have to be attacked at the Hospital and Pharma levels, then we can talk about reducing the need of Ins. Cos. (gov't payer as an option), then eliminating them altogether (end result being single-payer).

[Yossariant]

23. Whine all you want but, as usual, Bill Clinton is right.

Her plan covers twice as many people as Barack's plan and his plan costs 40% more per person.
:mad:

[Catherine Vincent]

24. Who are you calling boy?

[Thrill]

29. LMAO BILL GOT OWNED

[nancyharris]

31. Oddly enough

the only candidate to implement a form of universal health care is Romney in MA.

[BeyondGeography]

32. Where he proved that mandates do not result in universal health care

when costs are still too high.

[nancyharris]

38. Time will tell - it is only 1 month old. eom

[karynnj]

33. Hurray for Boxer

Bill Clinton should be ashamed of himself.

He also needs to be reminded that HRC's claim to fame in terms of healthcare is S-CHIP, where her role - which was critical - was to persuade him to include it in the budget. The bill was written by Kennedy and Hatch, starting with parts of a Kennedy/Kerry bill introduced a few months before. (It was an amazing Kennedy accomplishment to get this through a Republican Congress.)

If there's a Democratic President who didn't think it was that important - it was Bill Clinton.

[TexasObserver]

40. Watching Bill debase himself the past month has been painful.

He has taken a sledge hammer to his legacy. He was a good president, with some exceptions. He had a good standing in the world and in the US. Now, he'll be remembered as the foul mouthed political hack who turned the Hillary campaign from inevitable into a train wreck.

[havocmom]

52. It is sad.

Sometimes I wonder if the O2 mix was off when he had that surgery.

[BootinUp]

42. After the Harry and Louise mailer you wanna cry now?

pfffffft!

[DainBramaged]

46. OP talking major bullshit again

Sure cure for bullshit

[Auntie Bush]

48. And if we called Obama Boy...what would you say?

Just asking.

[creeksneakers2]

49. Bill is telling the truth. Obama doesn't care.

We can't have universal coverage without mandates. Healthy people have to be in the system to contribute enough to pay for those who aren't well. So Obama is being dishonest when he pretends he'll do universal health care with no mandates.

Since Obama can't do what he says, I conclude he doesn't care about it. If Obama cared about universal health care he'd fight for it now.

[Cha]

50. WOW! How fortunate is that?

That Senator Boxer was there to rebutt ol' bil's latest lies?

[workinclasszero]

53. Bill's wallowing in the dirt again?

I guess Hillary is getting desperate. So sad they use Rove-type tactics.

Bill Clinton has pissed all over his presidential legacy. I no longer respect and admire the man.

Bill and Hillary are done. We aren't going back to the 90's. Obama is taking us places the Clinton's can only dream of!

YES.WE.CAN!