The architect of Obamacare believed Hillary Clinton’s failed 1993 health care reform bill, known as “Hillarycare,” was “to the left of Obamacare” and would have been much more “disruptive.”
MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, a Ted Kennedy-linked health care economist who became the key writer of the Democrats’ health care reform law when President Obama took office, had dim views on Hillarycare, records reveal.
“Well once again, I think Obamacare is not single payer. It’s not socialism. And look, you can look at my record. I’ve not come out in favor of single payer socialism,” Gruber told radio host Hugh Hewitt in November 2013, when asked if Hillary Clinton was essentially the grandmother of Obamacare. (RELATED: Gruber Taught Obama About Health Care While Obama Smoked Cigarettes).
“I don’t think it’s the right system for America. And that’s not what Obamacare is. Hillary is not, Hillary, basically, she did endorse what became Obamacare in the 2008 elections, 2008 primaries. She endorsed that. But prior to that, she had a very different plan,” Gruber said.
“She had a plan which was much more interventionist. The Clinton, that’s the irony of Bill Clinton criticizing Obama for taking away people’s health insurance. The Clinton health care plan was much to the left of Obamacare. It would have more radically changed our health care system. Obamacare is really, it’s a big intervention, but it is much to the right of anything that’s been tried before,” Gruber continued.
“The original Hillarycare as proposed in the early 90s would, absolutely, would have been much more disruptive,” Gruber added.
Hillary Clinton was put in charge of the Clinton administration’s health care reform push in 1993 but failed to get Congress to back the proposed legislation, requiring Democrats to wait more than 15 years for Obama to finally pass a health care reform bill in 2010.
Gruber, a central figure in the Ted Kennedy-led health care circles that started the decades-long Democratic health reform push, told Congress in 1993 that Hillarycare would cause health care costs to go up.
“The honest truth is, I think we haven’t quite figured out what caused health care costs to go up so much over the last thirty years. I don’t think we’ve really found the magic bullet to drag them down,” Gruber told Congress as a member of a group called the Alliance for Health Reform. “So I think on the other side you’re bringing in 37 million people who didn’t have health insurance before, so that drives health care costs up.”
“My guess is they’re probably going to go up. Health-care costs are probably going to go up.”
WATCH:
The Clintons maintained close ties with White House Hillarycare adviser Ira Magaziner, who became the vice chairman and chief executive officer of the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Hillary Clinton supported a universal health care bill as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2008.
Clinton has recently praised the supposed accomplishments of Obamacare and come out publicly against the law’s repeal.
Repeal of the ACA would let insurers write their own rules again, and wipe out coverage for 16 million Americans.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 18, 2015
#ACA@5: 16m covered. Young ppl. Preexisting conditions. Women get better coverage. Repeal those things? Embrace them! pic.twitter.com/OI1m2VxD4W
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 23, 2015