Hillary Clinton’s first speech about health care reform.

The Hillary Clinton Quarterly has just published a transcript of what we believe was Hillary Clinton’s first speech outside the Beltway about health care reform.  The date was June 18, 1983, and the occasion was a meeting of the Democratic Governors Association. The place: Woodstock, Vermont.

I was there for that event as editor of the Quarterly. I brought along my tape recorder, took some pictures, and was — like most people there — thoroughly impressed both with Hillary’s command of the issue and the broad principles she outlined about health care reform. Much of what she said at the time is now part of the current vision of reform as expressed by President Obama. In fact, re-reading Hillary’s speech, some of the same phrases are being echoed today in Obama’s speeches and comments.

To read the transcript, click here.

Deja vu: Far right calls health care reform “socialism.”

In a move right out of the vast right-wing conspiracy playbook, today Michael Steele, the usually incoherent chairman of the Republican National Committee, found his voice at the National Press Club and called health care reform a “reckless experiment.”

When asked if he thought the plan now in Congress was “socialism,” he said “yes.”

Of course, the real news behind this story is that the Phil Gramm – Bob Dole tag-team from 1994 used precisely the same tactics — with a major assist from the health care lobby — to kill Hillary Clinton’s efforts to reform a dysfunctional health care system.

During the high — or low point — of the Clinton effort, the White House faxed me a transcript of remarks that Hillary made to reporters about the partisan attacks on her reform campaign. Please note that the focus of the attacks back then, as now, was to scare Americans into believing that reform meant socialism.

Here’s the question and Hillary’s reply:

Reporter: Mrs. Clinton, you said earlier that the debate has heightened public understanding of the health care issues. But as we approach the elections the rhetoric is getting increasingly more partisan. Do you think that helps public understanding or just adds to some of the confusion?

Hillary: I think that’s a fair question because it has, in the last couple of weeks, gotten increasingly partisan and it’s brought out all the old bromides. I see some of these signs that look like they’ve been around since Social Security, about socialism. And I don’t think that’s particularly beneficial for the substantive debate. But actually, it may be helpful in sharpening the differences, because when someone gets on TV as a member of the Congress and says health care reform which is meant to guarantee you private insurance is socialism, I think it’s fair then to ask, well, you must be against Social Security and Medicare, right? Oh, no, that’s different.

So I think that, in effect, the partisan rhetoric which is now filling the airwaves and the halls of Congress may help politically because it’s so far-fetched. And I think that once that becomes clear to people, then we can go back to hammering out the substance of what needs to be done.

What worked back then has a fair chance of killing health care reform once again.  As members of the GOP cabal have said, if they can kill the current Senate and House bills before the summer recess, they have a good chance of dumping reform altogether.

As also was true 15 years ago, the idea of a GOP “plan” for health care reform is nothing but a Trojan Horse. If you could wear it on your dick, it would have some usefulness. The truth, though, is that the GOP plan means the status quo, no change, and the lingering disgrace of nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance.

Other bloggers, including Think Progress and Patricia Murphy writing for Politics Daily,  have commented on the non-existent GOP strategy to reform health care.

For the curious, here’s an excerpt from Steele’s speech today.

Same groups that doomed Hillary’s health care reform are at it again.

To paraphrase the Godfather of the vast right wing conspiracy, Ronald Reagan, “There they go again!”

If Lindsey Graham’s comments today on ABC’s This Week are any indication, the same groups that attacked Hillary Clinton’s plan 13 years ago are after Obama-Care and are using the same scare tactics. Keep in mind that Graham was against universal health care months ago during the GOP Convention. It’s not the cost, it’s the idea of it that rankles conservatives.

Our fear is that anyone brazen enough to try to provide health care to 43 million uninsured Americans — has not learned enough about the power of the medical establishment and the Far Right. The simple fact is that special interests — the insurance lobby, doctors and the American Medical Association, hospitals and other health care providers — have always put profits over the health of needy Americans.

Correct that: they have put profits over the health of ALL Americans.

Back during the first Clinton Administration, the main assassins of health care reform were Bob Dole and Phil Gramm. They did the dirty work of the special interests. The only thing that has changed since 1993-1994 is that more Americans are uninsured and the health care system is even more dysfunctional.

What hasn’t changed is the ideology that says that Americans without health care must fend for themselves, that the taxes of “well-off” Americans should not be used to pay for health care for the poor (i.e. it’s their fault that they are poor and should suffer the consequences), and that in a theoretical free-market economy the health care providers — doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, etc. — should be free to maximize their profits regardless of the consequences.

Do not deceive yourself: those doctors who whined ad nauseum that health care reform would destroy your relationship with them were referring to their relationship with your wallet, not your body. To most doctors, your body is a means to an end: a high six or seven-figure income and the lifestyle of the rich and not-so-famous.

Mark my words: in the looming health care battle, the attack points of the far right will be identical to those used 13 years ago. If nothing else, their greed is consistent.