Christopher Hitchens on Congress, Health Care and Sex Scandals – First 100 Days Part 5 (1993)
April 5, 1993 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FChristopher-Hitchens%2Fe%2FB000APSKR0%3Fqid%3D1278211708%26sr%3D1-2-ent&tag=doc06-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
Watch the full program: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/christopher-hitchens-on-first-100-days.html
The Clinton health care plan was a 1993 healthcare reform package proposed by the administration of President Bill Clinton and closely associated with the chair of the task force devising the plan, First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Bill Clinton had campaigned heavily on health care in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. The task force was created in January 1993, but its own processes were somewhat controversial and drew litigation. Its goal was to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans, which was to be a cornerstone of the administration’s first-term agenda. A major health care speech was delivered by President Clinton to the U.S. Congress in September 1993. The core element of the proposed plan was an enforced mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely-regulated health maintenance organizations.
Opposition to the plan was heavy from conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry. The industry produced a much-talked-about television ad, “Harry and Louise”, in an effort to rally public support against the plan. Democrats, instead of uniting behind the President’s original proposal, offered a number of competing plans of their own. By September 1994, the final compromise Democratic bill was declared dead by Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell. Opponents of the plan continued to deride it in future years as “HillaryCare.”
Before President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010, the United States was the only wealthy, industrialized nation that did not provide some form of universal health care, other than Medicare. Although the United States has never had a universal health care system, it does have certain publicly funded health care programs that help to provide for the elderly and disabled (via Medicare), military service families, veterans (via the Veterans Health Administration), and some of the poor (via Medicaid), and children via S-CHIP. Additionally, federal law guarantees public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. Bill Clinton had campaigned heavily on health care in the 1992 election. The 1993 Clinton health care plan is sometimes called “HillaryCare” by opponents.
Hart declined to run for re-election to the Senate, leaving office when his second term expired with the intent of running for president again. In January 1987, he was the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 election.
Hart officially declared his candidacy on April 13, 1987. Rumors began circulating nearly immediately that Hart was having an extramarital affair. In an interview that appeared in the New York Times on May 3, 1987, Hart responded to the rumors by daring the press corps: “Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.” The Miami Herald had been investigating Hart’s alleged womanizing for weeks before the “dare” appeared in the New York Times. Two reporters from the Miami Herald had staked out his residence and observed a young woman leaving Hart’s Washington, D.C., townhouse on the evening of May 2. The Herald published the story on May 3, the same day Hart’s dare appeared in print, and the scandal spread rapidly through the national media. Hart and his allies attacked the Herald for rushing the story into print, claiming that it had unfairly judged the situation without finding out the facts. Hart said that the reporters had not watched both entrances to his home and could not have seen when the young woman entered and left the building. The Miami Herald reporter had flown to Washington, D.C. on the same flight as the woman, identified as Donna Rice. Hart was overwhelmed with questions regarding his views on marital infidelity. His wife, Lee, supported his position that the relationship with the young woman was innocent. A poll of voters in New Hampshire for the New Hampshire Primary showed that Hart’s support had dropped in half, from 32% to 17%, placing him suddenly ten points behind Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.
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UNAIDS and the WHO estimate that, as of December 2006, the number of people living with HIV has reached its highest level, at around 39.5 million. More than 25 million others have died of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) since it was first recognized in 1981, making the pandemic one of the most destructive in recorded history.