http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/59409-clinton-rejects-idea-that-obama-will-suffer-from-health-debateClinton rejects idea that Obama will suffer from health debate
By Michael O'Brien - 09/18/09 01:52 PM ET
President Obama's effectiveness will not be undercut by his effort to overhaul healthcare in the U.S., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted Friday.
Clinton, drawing on her own experience in pushing for a healthcare overhaul as First Lady in the early 1990s, said Obama wouldn't be undercut, because he will ultimately succeed where President Bill Clinton fell short.
"We were not successful in '93 and '94, but I don't think that in any way undercut President Clinton's ability to deal with the rest of the world, to make tough decisions," she said during a panel discussion at the liberal Brookings Institution. "I don't think we're going to face that, because I think we're going to be successful."
Clinton argued that the 90s effort to reform healthcare had laid the groundwork for the current effort, raising awareness of the issues at stake in the current push for reform.
"I am quite optimistic," she said of a bill's prospect. "We really have an opportunity now to produce an outcome that will significantly improve the important aspects of healthcare reform."The secretary also seemed a bit bemused at critics' outrage toward the plans before Congress, noting that they are much less expanse, relative to many other developed countries' healthcare systems.
"It's interesting that what we are proposing is fundamentally so conservative compared with some of our friends and allies who do a much better job than we do in covering everybody, and keeping costs down," she said. "And yet, some of the political opposition is so overheated. So we just have to calm down."
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