“Just as William, the stain, Clinton destroyed the women’s movement with his “Welfare Reform Act” which threw tens of thousands of single mothers into the streets and forced tens of thousands of others into the slavery of Wal-Mart like jobs, so also will Barry The Bomber’s healthcare reform continue pummeling the already staggering working-class American.

“Here we have a health care bill which will not only drive up insurance costs but will not even permit the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, thereby driving up pharmaceutical costs as well! The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that only 2% of Americans will be able to participate in this plan while 33% of Americans will remain either uninsured or underinsured. The bill even was stripped of the Kucinich amendment which would have permitted states to develop their own single-payer options. Americans will now be forced to buy health care plans from private insurance corporations. Forced!” ...

Why Progressives Should Back a Filibuster of the Health Care Bill—Can Lieberman Save Single Payer?
(scroll down at link)
http://counterpunch.org/murphy11092009.html

It is not all that puzzling that a topic about former President Clinton and health care should wander off into the vagaries of William Clinton’s rather shabby character. Since he as president, put his wife in charge of that disaster, which as I recall mainly listened to the insurance industry (how does that not sound familiar?) and did not accomplish one damn thing, why is it so urgent to heed the advice of that slippery eel now? I guess placing sanctions that caused the deaths of at least a half million Iraqi children is not about health care, but rather an international form of services denied.

I’m puzzled.  All these vagaries about Obama and Afghanistan and Clinton v. Hussein.  Here and I thought the article was about pushing health care reform a few inches forward. 
    I voted for Billy and Herman Munster and O and I would do it again in a heartbeat in spite of Monica or Rev. Wright or even the horrid days of Newt.  The alternatives were just NOT there.  Kooky Perot, more Bush The First, Cowboy W, bomb-bomb-bomb-McCain, not to mention all the other potential candidates at those times - summed up as the 7 Dwarves plus 20. 
  The facts indicate Bill was effective and persuasive and actually brought down debt and increased per capita income even in the middle class and has personal ties to most of current-day political types - even his erstwhile enemies. 
  Only the communists in the 50’s proposed their “Great Leap Forward” ideas and their doomed 5 year plans.  The rest of the world moves ahead by inch-pebbles, not milestones.  Any boost toward the goal line is appreciated - from ANY source, regardless how sordid. 
  Clinton reportedly advised the Senators to make the health care plans better - not just to pass along the clanking monolith the House proposed. 
  Why should the CEO of Wellpoint make 40 times the income of the top surgeon in the US?  Why should the spouses of Senators make millions on corporate boards of pharmaceutical companies and health insurers while average workers suffer 10% unemployment.
  If it takes Bill Clinton, or a song by George Clinton, to advance US health care, so be it.

tropicgirl: now tell us what you really think.
Former President Clinton’s “stature” can best be witnessed in that infamous interview with Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman, where he blamed his policy of sanctions against Iraq that killed at least a million children (what Sec. of State Albright claimed was “worth it”) all on the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, who simply did not share his great wealth and caused the catastrophe. Psychological historians will listen to that recording in the future, and marvel at what a classic example of denial combined with irrational anger is displayed by the former U.S. President whose stature I am told, seems to know no bounds.

All the right wing half-wits see this as another opportunity to bring Clinton down.  But, he doesn’t fall, his stature grows with each attack.

Bill -
Go Home Shut up and play…...
You’re not the only reason we’re in the mess we’re in, but you should did your
best to keep the road paved with blood.

Wow, Mister corporate-Dem himself says we must all leap forward and support this “Bailout with a blue cross”.

Let me guess.  Ole Bill also probably just got a $4 million speaking engagement at the next convention of the health insurance industry.

I’m so freaking impressed.  Of course, I was so freakin’ impressed by all of the corporate Bill years, and his selling of the Lincoln bedroom and the rest of the US government that I went and worked for the Nader campaign.

Personally, I wish Bill had spent more time with Monica, thus leaving less time in his day to sell our America to the corporations.

Yuck!

Ah, jeez. Bill Clinton—sooo unimaginative he gave “Leaves of Grass” both to his wife AND to his girlfriend—is counseling that “the worst thing to do is nothing”? It’s more important to most people that the former Democrats not get away with this mandatory-insurance scam than that Obama collect another “win” ...

People who know more about the medical end of it disagree with Wild Bill:

Marcia Angell, M. D., Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine:
Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing?
“Is the House bill better than nothing? I don’t think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we’ve tried health reform and it didn’t work. But the real problem will be that we didn’t really try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/09-5

See also: http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/blog/john-geyman-md-pnhp/2009/11/05/health-care-reform-2009-no-bill-is-better-than-a-bad-bill