How Hillary Won Over the Health Care Industry

K Gardner

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How Hillary Won Over the Health Care Industry

How Hillary Won Over the Health-Care Industry
By Susannah Meadows
Newsweek
September 17, 2007

She was persona non grata in the early 1990s, when the then-first lady’s dramatic health-care reform package went down. These days Hillary Clinton is winning raves among health-care-industry groups—and attracting their campaign dollars.

They were an army of two: Harry and Louise, those middle-aged, middle-class icons, frustrated that the government was limiting their health-care coverage. There they sat at their kitchen table, bills strewn before them, an adding machine at hand, despair in their souls. Bureaucrats were taking away their freedom—especially one named Hillary Clinton.

Cooked up in 1993 by the health-care-insurance lobby, Harry and Louise starred in a series of ads critical of the then-first lady’s dramatic plan to overhaul the U.S. health-care system. Her proposal for universal coverage actually kept private insurers in place, but she favored strict regulation—including price caps on insurance premiums. And she wasn’t going to compromise, not with the insurance companies, not with Congress, not with doctors. So Harry and Louise fired back, spooking Americans with their veiled references to socialized medicine. The fictional pair triumphed in 1994, helping to sink the 1,342-page bill—a centerpiece of her husband Bill Clinton’s first term.

Fast-forward 13 years. Hillary has announced a new plan for universal health-care coverage—a plan she hopes will help propel her to the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Surprisingly, her past health-care flop has become a significant political asset. Sixty-five percent of all voters—and 91 percent of Democrats—are confident that she would do the right thing for the health-care system, according to a Gallup poll released in July. And the captains of the health-care industry who once viewed her as the root of all evil are now filling the coffers of her campaign. (Her proposal calls for mandatory participation, which the industry tends to favor. But insurance companies will also be required not to turn anyone away for pre-existing conditions under Clinton’s new plan.) As of the first quarter of 2007 she was the recipient of more health-care-industry donations than any presidential candidate—Democrat or Republican—according to a recent study by the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy. How did the woman once demonized by the industry—whose plan was derided as “Hillary-care”—become so popular in these parts?

For starters, it’s a matter of realpolitik. As the leading Democratic contender running at a time of sagging GOP popularity, she’s a good bet to win the White House. Health-care companies naturally want a seat at the winner’s table, regardless of who it is. “These kinds of contributions in general follow power and influence, and these groups recognize that Sen. Clinton is a serious candidate to be the next president,” says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a campaign-finance watchdog group. “They are interested in gaining access to people in power of all ideologies in both parties.”

But there’s a downside to her careful courtship of the industry. Her chief rivals for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama and John Edwards, have repeatedly blasted her for accepting contributions from federal lobbyists. (On the GOP side, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson have tried a different tack, sounding the “socialized medicine” bell, in a not-so-veiled attempt to scare voters about Hillary’s intentions.)

She’s raised more money directly from lobbyists—including those representing health-care interests—and their families than any other presidential candidate, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. While she’s been challenged by Edwards not to accept lobbyist cash, she’s attended fund-raisers hosted by lobbyists themselves, including a $1,000-a-plate event last month in Chicago, according to ABC News. Clinton defended herself at this summers YearlyKos convention, where liberal bloggers both applauded and booed her. “A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans,” she said. “The idea that somehow a contribution is going to influence you—I just ask you to look at my record.”

But some consumer groups aren’t convinced. They look at the healthy contributions she’s received from health-care groups and wonder how far into the industry’s pocket she’s climbed. “There’s nobody in this race with her knowledge to make health care available to every American at a cheaper cost, but it would take going after the insurance industry that’s funding her candidacy,” say Jamie Court, president of consumerwatchdog.org. “I don’t know if there was a smoky back room, but her positions are certainly not threatening her cash stream, and their cash stream is helping her maintain her position as a front runner. In politics there aren’t too many coincidences.” Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign responds: “Reaching out, talking to and listening to the stakeholders is how you make change. Americans from all walks have a stake in seeing a better health-care system.”

The nurses’ union is equally glum about the chances for real reform. “Given how much money she’s gotten from the industry, the room for innovation is very limited,” says Michael Lighty, director of public policy for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, whose research arm conducted the health-care-donations study. “You either have to take on the stakeholders or you have to accommodate them. She is likely to accommodate all the major ones, certainly all the ones with deep pockets.” That’s a charge Harry and Louise would never have seen coming.

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in-the-news/2007/september/page.jsp?itemID=32062402

With Karen Springen, Eleanor Clift, Richard Wolffe, and Roya Wolverson