Bill Clinton to Health Insurers: 'I Want to Thank You for Your Support of The Healthcare Reform Move

[Donnachaidh]

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/06/11/clinton-ahip/

Bill Clinton To Health Insurers: ‘I Want To Thank You For Your Support Of The Healthcare Reform Movement’

060614_clintonSpeeches_vmed_2p.widecEarlier this week, former President Bill Clinton visited the group that almost single-handedly brought down his health care bill in 1993 with their infamous Harry and Louise ads. Clinton delivered the keynote address at the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) conference in Las Vegas, where he thanked them for supporting reform the second time around:

“I want to thank you for your support of the healthcare reform movement,” Clinton said numerous times during his lengthy, largely economics-oriented speech, which dealt with everything from the BP oil spill, to a new bus system in Lima, Peru.

“You deserve credit for taking a different position on this healthcare reform debate than the last one,” he said. The Health Insurance Association of America, an earlier incarnation of AHIP, was largely credited with torpedoing Clinton’s reform plans with their multimillion dollar “Harry and Louise” ad campaign.<...>

“I agree with you that we should have done more on cost-control,” he said, but he added that the law’s new insurance exchanges — which will begin operations in 2014 — will spur competition between insurance companies and lower costs.

“Americans tend to blame insurance companies for things that are really probably providers’ faults,” he said.

More at the link --

[bluestateguy]

1. They didn't support PPACA

They merely didn't oppose it very vigorously.

[roguevalley]

23. Bill Clinton can shove it. Maybe with his insurance he can get

blanche lincoln removed from his big fat butt.

[lib2DaBone]

2. Cha-Ching.... $$$$$$$$ Thank You... Thank You....

It's not the porr widdle Insurance Companies fault...... :nopity:

[Enrique]

3. Real democrats march with nurses in MN

the greedheads in Las Vegas can have Clinton and Obama and Baucus and Lincoln. I'll take Mark Dayton.


http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=852631&catid=391

(...)

The strike also drew politicians. All three major Democrats running for governor walked the picket lines at various times throughout the day, including Mark Dayton, Margaret Kelliher and Matt Entenza. Dayton said he got a good grasp for the value of nurses when his children were born, and when one of them was later treated for Lyme disease.

(...)

[laughingliberal]

6. +1000 nt

[kenfrequed]

17. + a lot more

Yup I support the nurses too!

[ohtransplant]

4. Did Elton John perform?

I'm bettin' former President Clinton picked up a sizable check.

[Angry Dragon]

5. This man worries me right now

[dflprincess]

7. Why wouldnt they support it?

All those new victims customers they've been handed - especially the ones that qualify for tax supported subsidies a guaranteed source of income for years to come. The system they supported has been protected and threat of real reform delayed for years.

[FiveGoodMen]

8. He's turned out to be much worse than most of us ever believed.

At one time, he actually seemed like a good guy.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. I was a Clinton True Believer.

I defended him through everything, right up until the day he left office. Then I got the Internet, got educated, and lost the blinders.

What a fucking fool I was.

I suspect some here may go through the same revelation with O.

[Bluebear]

19. I am with you , Every word.

[laughingliberal]

9. Does look as if the corporatist wing of the Democratic party is dropping the pretenses, now.

All that looking like they stood for workers and the poor must have been stressful. They apparently now believe the corporatists have enough of a lock that voters are now irrelevant (IOW, we have nowhere to go).

[EFerrari]

11. And they don't need our money. nt

[amborin]

22. their braziness is amazing; better than hypocrisy maybe, but scary; they've got so much power

[Sebastian Doyle]

12. Bill, just go the fuck away.

Geezus, one day he's bashing unions. The next day, he's doing to corporations what Monica did to him.

Go fishing with Poppy and shut the fuck up.

[QC]

13. Shhhh! We're not supposed to talk about that sort of thing! n/t

[Mojorabbit]

14. I cannot believe he would say this

“Americans tend to blame insurance companies for things that are really probably providers’ faults,” he said.
On behalf of my family physician hubby and myself, a retired nusre, You can fuck off. Every day my husband spends hours arguing with insurance co bean counters after they deny care and meds his patients need. I'll say it again, Fuck off.

[laughingliberal]

18. Well, he's correct in that for profit hospital corporations are a big part of the problem but...

that, in no way, mitigates the responsibility of the insurance companies. If he's trying to displace blame to doctors and home health agencies (a huge target of his in his Presidency) I'm not buying that.

[kath]

20. And I'll say it ten MORE times:

Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off.

Yep - the mask is now totally off him and all the other DLC assholes, and the vast majority of our Dem "representatives".

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Does that depend on the definition of "support", Bill?

[kenfrequed]

16. That is a big steaming pile.

Working for an HMO/clinic system I can tell you that private insurance is the source of most of the problems in healthcare.

Their tendency to deny everything that moves in terms of healthcare claims and costs forces the clinic and hospital systems to increase general costs to compensate for the losses that these insurers create.

Bear in mind there is a difference between healthcare and insurance. Healthcare and the provision thereof is a service that is provided and billed and that is how the money is made there. Health Insurance makes its money by charging more than you will use in benefits and attempting to pay out as little as possible.

Fmr President Clinton could not have been more wrong.

[frylock]

21. reporting live from the briar patch..

but but but the insurance companies were against this bill!!1

[misanthrope]

24. Still the same prick he always was...

...Nothing new there. Yesterday's Republicans = today's Democrats.

[area51]

25. Of course they supported it, Bill ...

They wrote it, so why shouldn't they support it? :eyes:

They've got a huge new, mandated lot of victims, and are going to get cash infusions regularly.

Does anyone really think that they won't run whining to the govt. for another bailout, saying that we've made them "too big to fail"?

They know damned well that in first-world countries that use a multi-payer insurance model, they wouldn't be allowed to get away with killing people like they do here.

They'll do anything, pay any bribe, to try to stop single-payer, even though single-payer wouldn't put them out of business. They can always sell supplementary insurance, or specialize in Home, Flood, Car, or Life Insurance.