ELDERLY POLITICIAN ACCIDENTALLY TELLS TRUTH: The Hill: Bill Clinton goes way off message on ObamaCare.
Hillary Clinton and the White House struggled on Tuesday to explain Bill Clinton’s blistering critique of ObamaCare, which exposed divisions in the Democratic Party over the healthcare law.
The former president’s surprisingly strong criticism of Obama’s signature achievement also gave Republicans free talking points ahead of the vice presidential debate.
Clinton unloaded on the Affordable Care Act during a campaign rally Monday afternoon in Michigan, a state where premium hikes are expected to be around 17 percent this fall.
“You’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have healthcare and then the people that are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half,” Clinton said.
“It’s the craziest thing in the world.”
Nah, who am I kidding, he’s just teeing up things for single-payer while letting Hillary pretend that’s not her policy:
He then called for more a government-driven system in which people could buy into Medicare and Medicaid. Without that option, Clinton said, the law “doesn’t make any sense” and “the insurance model doesn’t work here.”
A spokesman for the former president defended the comments on Tuesday, painting them as being in tune with his wife’s overall healthcare message. The Democratic presidential nominee has called for ObamaCare to be adjusted around the edges but largely kept in place.
“And while he was slightly short-handed, it’s clear to everyone, including President Obama, that improvements are needed,” Bill Clinton spokesman Angel Urena said in an emailed statement.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign also sought to do damage control, underscoring that both she and Obama had acknowledged in the last several weeks that there are “real problems” with the healthcare reform law, particularly on affordability.
But others saw Bill Clinton’s comments as going badly off course at a time when the law is facing one of its roughest stretches in six years.
I’m going with “teeing up.”