November 13, 2013

"Whatever Bill Clinton’s motives — Republicans say he is distancing his wife, Hillary Clinton, from the ObamaCare debacle in advance of a White House run..."

Says Jonathan Easley at The Hill in a piece titled "Obama is boxed in by Bill Clinton."

Do we really need Republicans to explain that Bill is out to help Hillary? How could anyone begin to analyze Bill Clinton's remarks about Obamacare without the assumption that he's positioning Hillary for 2016?

Now, Bill's main quote was: "I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, that the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they’ve got." And I think we know that it's not really possible to keep Obamacare and somehow force private insurance companies to re-activate all the plans that have been canceled. What Bill is really saying is Obama lied. Obama made promises he knew would be broken, because that's what it took to get the government's health-care machine going.

Hillarycare failed, but the up side of that is that Hillary isn't loaded with the political damage that had to happen in the process of dragging everyone into the machine. That's all on Obama. Millions feel the pain and the anger as the big machine grinds into motion and pulls them in. In retrospect, it's a benefit to Hillary that Obama got the win in '08 and that his name went on the "care" that's hurting so much.

Once Obamacare is in motion and everybody's in and the screaming at the intake point has given way to muffled groaning from inside the grinding machinery, a beneficent Hillary will sweep forward with plans for easing that pain. The competent one is here at last, now that you're all in there and can't complain to her about that nasty, deceitful intake process.

ADDED: Jonathan Cohn explains how "Bill Clinton Is Wrong" about "How Obamacare Works." But Cohn is assuming (or pretending) that Bill isn't smart, devious, and political (which I'm taking for granted).

51 comments:

Meade said...

She's luckier than a dog with nine dicks.

gerry said...

She is a dog wirth nine dicks.

Anonymous said...

I have a vision of our old hand cranked meat grinder with the sausage attachment on the front.

I know it's mixing metaphors, but Lenin did say: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs,"

I find it extremely amusing that the Democrats who campaign every year based on dragging some pitiful example of the downtrodden poor on stage to blame the GOP are going to get savaged by the same stories for the next three years :)

Big Mike said...

Strangely enough, based on the smidgens of information that leaked out far enough to be published, Hillarycare would have been worse. Much, much worse.

Bob Ellison said...

Maybe Amazon will attempt a non-hostile take-over of the entire federal government. I'd be for that.

Tank said...

Just like Romney was the one Repub who could not savage Zero on O'Care, Rodham is the one Dem who can't do it either (she had her own "big gov't" ideas).

Carol said...

oh boy her fangirls just know she'll bring on the single payer too

Hagar said...

I think you give Bill Clinton too much Machiavellian credit; he just knows that Billary has got to get away from this tarbaby, and he needs to start chucking and jiving, and something will surely turn up to distract attention to elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

On the other hand Bob, Amazon doesn't make any profits either...

Anonymous said...

PS: WaPo had an interesting story out that ends with:

Software problems with the federal online health insurance marketplace, especially in handling high volumes, are proving so stubborn that the system is unlikely to work fully by the end of the month as the White House has promised, according to an official with knowledge of the project.

The insurance exchange is balking when more than 20,000 to 30,000 people attempt to use it at the same time — about half its intended capacity, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal information. And CGI Federal, the main contractor that built the site, has succeeded in repairing only about six of every 10 of the defects it has addressed so far. …

Government workers and tech­nical contractors racing to repair the Web site have concluded, the official said, that the only way for large numbers of Americans to enroll in the health-care plans soon is by using other means so that the online system isn’t overburdened.


Hagar said...

And Billy Jeff may not know what the answers are, but he does know that if the people are not going to cooperate, they are not going to cooperate.

Jane the Actuary said...

I just don't get it. I don't understand why Dems are so enthralled with "Hillary '16." What has she done? What did she achieve as senator or sec of state, besides travel a lot?

Besides -- she will be 69. At some point, it's over.

Jane the Actuary said...

Oh, and fun fact: before ObamaCare, before the 2008 election, Zeke Emmanuel wrote a paper proposing a vouchercare system which I came upon last night while looking for something else. http://janetheactuary.blogspot.com/2013/11/update-on-vouchercare.html

Anonymous said...

Meade said...

She's luckier than a dog with nine dicks.

Naked Dylan Robot says:

I Have Scanned Memory Archives and Do Not Recognize This as an Authentic Dylan Lyric.

Michael K said...

"Strangely enough, based on the smidgens of information that leaked out far enough to be published, Hillarycare would have been worse. Much, much worse."

From what I know, it would have been about the same except the computer database situation might have reduced the hubris that led to this disaster. The reason doctors opposed it was because participation was mandatory. you could not provide care outside of the system.

In both cases, the left requires force to get where it wants to go.

They could, as Peggy Noonan points out, have made Medicare optional for everyone and then seen what happened.

khesanh0802 said...

Maybe giving Bill more credit than he deserves, but I have always thought he was one of the great marketers of all time. He is extremely sensitive to what moves large numbers of people and how to go about moving them. He obviously feels there is a lot of mileage to be made by this ploy. I also suspect that he is very aware of the hit the Dems are taking now and that if something is not done what a hit they will take in '14 and '16.

Michael K said...

"
Blogger Tank said...

Just like Romney was the one Repub who could not savage Zero on O'Care"

Actually, Romney had a pretty good argument if he had used it. He opposed employer mandates and agreed only to the individual mandate without all the baggage Pelosi and Reid added. The Mass Democrats overrode his veto of the bill and passed the employer mandate anyway.

He probably thought the argument too arcane for a campaign.

khesanh0802 said...

Maybe giving Bill more credit than he deserves, but I have always thought he was one of the great marketers of all time. He is extremely sensitive to what moves large numbers of people and how to go about moving them. He obviously feels there is a lot of mileage to be made by this ploy. I also suspect that he is very aware of the hit the Dems are taking now and that if something is not done what a hit they will take in '14 and '16.

I'm Full of Soup said...

As Drill Sgt said, the feds will have to send out healthcare disaster adjusters with checkbooks [ala a natural dissater] for the next three years so the adjusters can cut checks on the spot to people whose coverage got f-ed up and who ended with no coverage and a serious illness. It will probably cost the taxpayers a trillion or so. But without learning their lesson, the Dems will soon lead the charge to "reform" some other big thing like immigration or our schools or the tax codes and they will f-up those up too.

Chaos and incompetency are the middle names of dopey Dems like Obama.

kjbe said...

Politician presents self as solution to current policy debacle (like, that's never happened before).

Andy Freeman said...

Bill Clinton is wrong - the federal govt didn't promise that people could keep policies that said people liked, Obama did.

The same promise was made by numerous congressional Dems.

I'll bet that Hillary Clinton is on-record making the same promise.

ken in tx said...

I read this somewhere, they keep breaking eggs, but nobody gets an omelet.

Meade said...

I got my black dog with nine dicks barkin'
Black dog with nine dicks barkin’
Yes it is now
Yes it is now
Outside my yard
Yes, I could tell you how to get on the government website
If I just didn’t have to try so hard



Hagar said...

Romney listened too much to his "expert" advisers, and he is not the instinctive good talker Billy Jeff is.

Ipso Fatso said...

As for Hillary, the media will declare the run up to the 2016 election, "The Year of The Woman" and do everything in their power to get her or E. Warren elected. Bill Clinton will be resurrected as "honest broker" spokesman for the D party, as Obama will be too damaged by Obamacare and his other failures to be much help, just like Bush in 2008. Bill Clinton's resurrection has just begun, Hillary's is waiting in the wings.

madAsHell said...

I think she can distance herself from Obamacare.
Benghazi??.....not so much.

Ipso Fatso said...

Oh, and for those who say that Hillary will be 69 and too old to be president, remember that Reagan was 69 when he was first elected. The left will completely ignore, as will their sock puppets in the media, the insults and arguments used against Reagan's age during his first term. None of those will every be applied to Hillary. For anyone on the right to bring up Hillary's age, instant chorus' of Ageism!!! Anti-Womyn!!! chants will be endlessly repeated on NBC, etc. Sad to say, Hillary has a pretty good chance as of right now.

Bob Ellison said...

It's kind of touching to see Clinton standing by his woman.

SGT Ted said...

The idea that it takes Big Thinkers to figure out the Clinton's obvious political machinations shows just how insular the Beltway crowd has become.

Anonymous said...

Clinton was for it before he was against it.

tim in vermont said...

That comment was not off the cuff. The wording may have been, I don't know, but he obviously thought about it before he said it. It has to be viewed as planned for some political effect.

Original Mike said...

"Bill Clinton is wrong - the federal govt didn't promise that people could keep policies that said people liked, Obama did."

Exactly.

tim in vermont said...

On the other hand, we can recycle all kinds of software jokes against Obama now.

"What is the difference between Obama and a used car salesman?

The used car salesman knows when he is lying."

Or, about the website, "Obama is trying to have a baby in a month by getting nine women pregnant."

Hey! A use for nine dicks!

SGT Ted said...

"I just don't get it. I don't understand why Dems are so enthralled with "Hillary '16." What has she done? What did she achieve as senator or sec of state, besides travel a lot? "

It's just the latest Democrat Parties manifestation of Personality Cult. It's the basis of the claims that Hillary is "smart" and "accomplishsed", when she is little more than a typically sour lefty feminist coat-tailer with a college credential and the political pedigree as the wife of Governor Bill Clinton serving as a substitute for competence.

The entire 2008 nomination fight between Hillary and Barry was a duel of Personality Cults, and because Obama was less known, a far better adept liar and didn't have Hillary's "Commissar" public personality type, he won.

RecChief said...

Althouse - I think you are on the money here. One problem, I don't think she can win the nomination, much less the Presidency.

1. The media won't get behind her like they for Obama. It will be more of a "hold your nose" situation.

2. After 8 years of Obama, I think we will see Left Fatigue.

3. She cannot unite the country, conservatives have a visceral raction to her, and her own party picked a rank amateur over her. She isn't liked nor likable. She isn't Bill. On the other hand, Liz Warren seems to be the darling of Ezra Klein and rest of the journolist crowd as well as the hipster Occupy types.

4. And most importantly, Benghazi

Meade said...

"4. And most importantly, Benghazi "

A pre-existing reason she won't even run. One can feign a faint and counterfeit a concussion only so many times.

test said...

The competent one is here at last, now that you're all in there and can't complain to her about that nasty, deceitful intake process.

The key to leftist governance is ABC: Always Be Changing. Every change is an opportunity to move left. Obamacare establishes government at the pinnacle of healthcare, they decide what must be insured and what will be paid for. But to get it passed they have to include provisions limiting how far left it is, like requiring participation and insulating government from the costs.

But it's implemented so poorly there must be changes, like removing the fines. Oops, now we're deficit spending, but since it's a crisis it's ok.

Removing the fines will increase insuror costs as only those with high expectations join. So premiums increase, and in response we'll increase subsidies. Deficit spending, but it's a crisis!

There is a similar effect on tax changes. When increasing taxes we must ensure the poor aren't effected so tax progressivism increases. But when taxes decrease it's a giveaway to the rich unless we find special ways to benefit people who pay no tax, and so tax progressivism increases.

And the key to all of this is changing the nameplate on the door. After all the Senator who said "if there's anything in this bill requiring quotas I'll eat it" isn't being held to his boast is he? But of course he was wrong.

YoungHegelian said...

Whatever Bill Clinton’s motives — Republicans say he is distancing his wife, Hillary Clinton, from the ObamaCare debacle in advance of a White House run

So it's unnamed Republicans who are saying this? I don't so. I don't think this has a lot to do with Hillary, either. I think BC was getting besieged by Democrats who have to get elected in 2014 all telling him "Bill, we're fuckin' dying here! Can't you beat some sense into the Clown-in-Chief?"

MadisonMan said...

How is a dog with nine dicks lucky? Can you actually use more than one at a time?

Government workers and tech­nical contractors racing to repair the Web site have concluded, the official said, that the only way for large numbers of Americans to enroll in the health-care plans soon is by using other means so that the online system isn’t overburdened

I will submit my information via punchcards. Will that work?

Anyway, I look forward to the Hillary!!/Elizabeth Warren primary battle. May the best man win.

jr565 said...

"And I think we know that it's not really possible to keep Obamacare and somehow force private insurance companies to re-activate all the plans that have been canceled"


You can't put the genie back in the bottle. These were the outcomes of Obamacare, and the dems decided to go all in. Clinton is no dupe. He knows this is a loser, and he's ceding the point to the republicans because he knows a lot of opeople are hurt by this.
But this is the dems bed, and they can't unmake it. It will only get worse.

Obama better hope that all of a sudden things turn around really quick, because if not this is going to impact future elections for democrats.

Democrats went all in on this alone. And now they are all alone on this as it implodes.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Repubs, do not give them a life preserver. No delays. When we wanted that we were terrorists. Now suddenly dems want to compromise with terrorists? Screw that.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Hillary Clinton: the most uncompromising wartime president in the history of the United States.

I'm not a fan, but she'd have been far better for the country, and far worse for Republicans, than what we have now.

And she'd have made things far easier for the media, because they wouldn't have to so blatantly be in the tank.

cubanbob said...

The DNA test came back and it shows that without any room for error Hillary is the mother of ObamaCare. The bumper sticker writes itself.

RecChief said...

I know I mentioned Ezra Klein earlier, but I didn't expect Mr. Klein to be so quick in attempting to come to the rescue of his King.

Blame Bill Clinton for the promise that everyone could keep their health insurance plan is Klein's take on this.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/12/why-did-obama-promise-people-could-keep-their-health-insurance-blame-bill-clinton/

Limited Blogger said...

Remember when Hillary and Bill waged their war on that woman, that fretful, foolish Louise?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-7A8d2wptI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hyphenated American said...

There is a simple answer that Obama could give to Clinton - what difference does it make?

Hyphenated American said...

One thing i am curious though, how many federal workers are expected to buy their health insurance on the obamacare website? I hope all of them.

damikesc said...

Oh, and for those who say that Hillary will be 69 and too old to be president, remember that Reagan was 69 when he was first elected. The left will completely ignore, as will their sock puppets in the media, the insults and arguments used against Reagan's age during his first term. None of those will every be applied to Hillary. For anyone on the right to bring up Hillary's age, instant chorus' of Ageism!!! Anti-Womyn!!! chants will be endlessly repeated on NBC, etc. Sad to say, Hillary has a pretty good chance as of right now.

...except the Left doesn't like her. They want Warren. A consolation prize doesn't tend to win elections often.

And PLEASE nominate Warren. I'm BEGGING Dems to cave into that strain of insanity.

Kirk Parker said...

Bob Ellison,

"Maybe Amazon will attempt a non-hostile take-over of the entire federal government. I'd be for that. "

Not me; it's hostility all the way, baby! (Just returning the favor in doing so, you understand.)

-Kirk (proud Kulak.)

damikesc said...

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Repubs, do not give them a life preserver. No delays. When we wanted that we were terrorists. Now suddenly dems want to compromise with terrorists? Screw that.

Disagree.

Give them delays...

...in exchange for a sunset clause requiring it to be re-approved every 2 years.

Starting 2014.

Sometime in late August.

Kirk Parker said...

"Government workers and technical contractors racing to repair the Web site have concluded, the official said, that the only way for large numbers of Americans to enroll in the health-care plans soon is by using other means so that the online system isn’t overburdened"

I thought it was the case that there are no other means; that whoever you talk to on the 800 number still has to access the web front end to do their part.

Certainly, in this day and age of capable browsers, I wouldn't implement a system with an entire full-blown web interface and then also create another Windows desktop app to do the same exact thing the web version does!

n.n said...

Hillary would have to demonstrate an extraordinary difference before what she offers could now be considered to matter.