Hillary's health care: classic liberalism?

[JohnnyLib2]

The RW pundits will be in full, bloody battle cry today and they won't be alone.

Having come of political age in the 60s, from a Democratic home, I expect to be in the familiar position of defending against the old "tax and spend" charges.

--The War on Poverty, and specifically early childhood programs, was my first time of reckoning. Problems defined: "liberal" approach taken to attempt to solve them. In my case, the answer was yes.

--My parents spoke of the New Deal programs being utterly controversial.
Then they would point to specific changes brought about in our small town.

From this perspective, HRC now puts liberalism on the line, open to attack from both sides. Get ready, friends, it's going to be a defining phase of this campaign.

And it's off to work for me.....

[asthmaticeog]

1. I don't see how it's "liberal" to basically force everyone to buy a product

from a private company. If Giuliani proposed this, the pundits would be discussing it seriously. But since it's Hillary, and claiming that she's somehow a "liberal" is part of their narrative, they have to complain about something they *should* totally adore.

[Carrieyazel]

44. Her plan will be sliced apart by the Repukes and their allies in the chattering class

It doesn't matter what it is.

Health care reform is not a Hillary strong suit. She screwed it up so bad 13 years ago, this will just remind the voters that we got NOTHING then because Hillary was so stubborn, foolhardy and yes, incompetent for not realizing what the Repukes were going to do. She let them frame the debate and she lost. And millions of uninsured lost. She has never publicly admitted her failure outright, which says to many that she still doesn't have a clue.

[antiimperialist]

2. Hillary should not advocate Universal Health Care. She's giving Republicans something to talk about

This message brought you by moderates against non-soft Moveon ads.

[papau]

3. Hillary and Edwards plans are quite similar - and Edwards is being painted as "far left" n/t

n/t

[Toots]

4. It was Liberalism that made America great

Don't run from the term wear it with pride. Thank God for Liberalism. Without it we would still be living in the Depression..

[wyldwolf]

5. Oh, come on, you must be joking.

The plan is a less liberal than that of Edwards and Obama. Are you just taking this position because you feel a need to criticize Senator Clinton?

The Rightwing is going to attack any universal health care plan but the idea behind the one Clinton is supporting ("individual mandate")has popular support and has been proposed by two GOP Governors, one being Mitt Romney.

[William769]

6. The need to criticize Senator Clinton is all that matters anymore to the far left on DU

They know her nomination is coming and they can't stop it.

[asthmaticeog]

7. Right.

It couldn't have anything to do with visceral disgust at her open anti-progressivism, her warmongering or her give-the-store-to-the-corporate-sector health "plan," it's that we're just jealous.

Oh, but don't get me wrong, Junior High School logic is a credit to DU. :eyes:

[William769]

8. not to DU.

To some who use DU. And apparently you have not been listening to what she has been saying. It's apparent by what you just wrote.

[wyldwolf]

9. all of you really need to get on the same page about Sen. Clinton

Either her healthcare plan is classic liberalism as the OP states or it's "give-the-store-to-the-corporate-sector."

:eyes:

This shtick from the left is alternately amusing and sad.

It couldn't have anything to do with visceral disgust at her open anti-progressivism, her warmongering

Talk about jr High logic.

[asthmaticeog]

10. And this is why she's a bad nominee.

The right hates her. The left hates her. You mushball-middle fence-straddlers have fun when her "inevitability" leads us to yet another Republican executive administration.

[wyldwolf]

11. I'll clue you in on some other names the left and the right both hated

Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman
John Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Jimmy Carter
Bill Clinton.

If the left AND the right hates someone, that makes them a GOOD candidate.

[asthmaticeog]

13. Right. Just like John Kerry. nt

[wyldwolf]

15. John Kerry

Unfortunately for John Kerry, he decided to take the "progressive" approach to dirty politics - pretend you're above it all, ignore the smears, and hope they go away.

It was his "left" side that lost it for him.

[asthmaticeog]

16. Wow. You don't, like, know stuff.

[wyldwolf]

17. LOL. Like, wow! So, like, dude...show me I'm wrong

[asthmaticeog]

18. Skittishness about making waves is not a progressive trait.

That's the DLC's stock in trade. Spineless. Corporatist. Appeasers. Sure, he's ramped up his rhetoric now that it doesn't matter... thanks, John.

[wyldwolf]

20. we're not discussing "making waves." We're discussing playing dirty politics.

The progressive movement's entire electoral history has been one of taking the high road - even when their name is being dragged through the mud.

You're good at charging at Windmills but as soon as someone calls you dumb for doing it, you just pretend you never heard it.

[asthmaticeog]

23. Wow, you don't, like, know stuff.

Your ability to throw a preposterously ignorant cariacature into the discussion is comical, though.

Buh bye now. Enjoy your nice long war and shitty health care - it's what you're voting for, after all.

[wyldwolf]

24. LOL. Like, wow! So, like, dude...show me I'm wrong

Your ability to throw a preposterously ignorant cariacature into the discussion is comical, though.

The irony at DU sometimes...

[asthmaticeog]

25. "Prove it - with LINKS!"

:rofl:

[wyldwolf]

26. "Progressives:" Facts? We don't need no stinkin' facts!

[asthmaticeog]

28. I haven't seen any evidence from you for your assertions.

What then are the defining characteristics of progressivism? It's obvious you support Clinton, how is her health plan and war plan superior to any liberal's? Prove it to me. With, y'know, like, facts.

[wyldwolf]

30. mine are counter-assertions. But I asked first.

[jefferson_dem]

14. Yeah...Hillary's turn...

It's inevitable. No need for elections or anything like that. We must submit. Resistance is futile.

[asthmaticeog]

22. Hey, for the sake of party unity...

we really need to shut up about what our values and policy ideas are and just open our mouths and other orafices to accept whatver the Democratic party's right wing wants to shove in there. It's the only way to get a nominal Democrat inaugurated, which is intrinsically valuable, you see, even if their war policy is barely different from the GOPs and their health plan is a corporate giveaway that guarantees we all pay, but doesn't guarantee actual coverage. Got it? Good, now we get to keep quiet until the next Repubican gets inaugurated, for which we'll get blamed.

[sandnsea]

12. Massachusetts is not the US

I don't have a personal problem with individual mandates, or even employer mandates. But the rest of the country is going to spit nails over this. We will lose over this. And then to help low income families with tax credits??? What a joke. She is totally out of touch with working people. This thing is DOA.

[wyldwolf]

19. You show an amazing grasp for the obvious in the title of your reply...

..but aside from that, show me stats supporting anything you've written. Surely if you're so adamant about your points, there most be some supportive evidence.

[sandnsea]

27. The country hates mandates??

Are you serious? lol. Right, this country LOVES being forced to do shit by the government. Stats. How ridiculous.

[asthmaticeog]

29. wyldwolf demands PROOF. It's what wyldwolf does.

Offering any in turn isn't wyldwolf's thing, though. Centrist appeasers are self-evidently right about everything, don'tchaknow.

[wyldwolf]

32. of course, otherwise we'd have to rely on silly and naive opinions from the left

[asthmaticeog]

34. Now you're just trolling.

Should have seen that coming. :eyes:

[wyldwolf]

36. you've shown a tendency to project your shortcomings on other people.

[asthmaticeog]

37. You supported Lieberman. That's YOUR shortcoming, never was mine. QED

What's that, ignore list? You want me to add a right wing shitheel to you? OK, but only because it's your special day!

[wyldwolf]

38. ah, the "progressive" way: When you have no facts, use personal attacks. Didn't take you long.

[wyldwolf]

31. did I say that?

[sandnsea]

33. You object to my post about mandates

what else could you be saying.

:shrug:

[wyldwolf]

35. I object to you implying I said "the country hates mandates."

On the contrary. The mandate proposal Clinton is backing calls for a combination of government and employee subsidies and individual responsibility.

FAR removed from the single payer system the left wants which is so easily painted as socialism.

[sandnsea]

40. No, I was expressing shock

that you would question my statement that the country hates mandates. That you need stats to know that is reality.

What? The country hates mandates?!! You need proof of that???

Mandates kill it, and will be a huge battle in the GE, enough to destroy her. The only hope would be Romney, who signed mandates in Mass. But that was a Dem plan, and there's no way they're going to get away with continuing to pretend the Mass plan was all Romney. It wasn't.

She should have just went with Kerry's plan, with the added Medicare option, no mandates.

[wyldwolf]

42. ..at something I didn't say?

Look, if you make an assertion that runs contrary to what I've seen and read, of course I want statistics.

:shrug:

[sandnsea]

43. be clear

The country loves mandates. The country hates mandates.

Which.

[donkeyotay]

21. Let me join the fray early. I heard HRC was mandating health insurance

on the tee vee, so I had to check in here to see if I'd heard what I thought I heard. If that's her solution to the health CARE crisis - to mandate buying insurance - uh, that's a deal breaker for me.

The Medicare Bill was a defining disaster in corporate rule. This bill will only make the problem worse. Passing a law that requires people to buy an extremely crappy product is neither Liberal nor liberal. It is not "free-market," nor does it help people obtain a service that most societies define as a right. It will not protect people from bankruptcy. It will not make care more affordable. It's corporate welfare.

If this is where the Democratic Party is at, I'm an Independent.

[JohnnyLib2]

39. Class? Class!

I'm online briefly at lunchtime and find that responses to the post have veered afar.

One of the main parts of most definitions of liberalism has been stated as "nonviolent modification of (governmental and other) institutions...."
Another part is personal autonomy and so forth.

I'll say again, HRC has proposed change, big change.

Please discuss civilly while I'm out of the room.


:evilgrin:

[redqueen]

41. Big change?

How is it 'big'?