SF Chronicle: Health Care System Broken, Says Bill Clinton

[Hissyspit]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/14/BAG7BP8VJV3.DTL

Health care system broken, Clinton says
Janine DeFao

Saturday, April 14, 2007

(04-14) 16:23 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The dire state of the nation's health care system is threatening the country's well-being, former President Bill Clinton told a receptive crowd in San Francisco on Saturday.

"Our health care system is immoral because it doesn't provide health care to everybody," said Clinton, the keynote speaker at KCBS Health Etc., a daylong symposium at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. "It's wildly uneconomical. We pay more than everybody else in the world for less."

"It is sowing the seeds of its own destruction," said Clinton, who said health care is one of the top three problems the country faces, along with economic inequality and energy dependence.

Clinton was warmly received by the crowd, which leapt to its feet in the first of three standing ovations before he began speaking.

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[GCP]

1. It's a pity he didn't try and fix it

And not leave it to Hilary - I know the insurance industry fought hard and dirty against her, but I think she could have done better anyway.

[aquart]

2. Of course.

You must tell us how.

[GCP]

3. Well, all those closed door sessions didn't help

Then she tried to float the idea of people buying into small pools for insurance purposes, when most people in healthcare think a single payer system would be vastly simpler and cheaper to administer, apart from saving billions yearly in healthcare costs. She didn't try to sell that idea at all.