Bill Clinton talks health-care with Senate Democrats

Christina Wijfjes-Smit
Examiner
Nov 11, 2009

Last night theAssociated Press reported that former President Bill Clinton met with Senate Democrats in an attempt to persuade them to vote in favor of health-care reform.

He told reporters after the closed door meeting:

It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling,"

Further the AP reported:

Clinton told them (Senate Democrats) that expanding health care is good policy, and at the same time the best politics.”

One has to wonder how Clinton’s approach will be received by the conservatives of the Democratic Party, not to mention the American people. Since the House passed their version of health-care reform, public support for it has faltered. Yesterday Gallup released a new poll that asked how Americans would tell their representatives to vote on the health-care bill; only 29% were in favor of the bill while 38% opposed it.

It appears that the fight for health-care reform has become more about a “political win” then about providing quality, affordable health-care to Americans. Democrats know what is at stake if they fail to pass health-care this year; and for the Democrats failure cannot be an option. Now with Clinton at the helm, it appears the battle cry for health-care is “winning at any cost,” even with a bad bill. If Democrats choose to go in this direction, it may wind up costing them more than they are willing to pay.