Hillary's Health Care Cabal
By Tom Fitton
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/24/2008
Judicial Watch released new documents last week from the Clinton Presidential Library regarding Hillary?s botched attempt to stage a government takeover of our nation?s healthcare system in 1993. Our investigators found them during a trip to the Clinton Library in Little Rock last year.
Here are a few highlights from what we found:
A June 18, 1993, internal Memorandum entitled, ?A Critique of Our Plan,? authored by P.S., which makes the startling admission that critics of Hillary?s health care reform plan were correct: ?I can think of parallels in wartime, but I have trouble coming up with a precedent in our peacetime history for such broad and centralized control over a sector of the economy?Is the public really ready for this?... none of us knows whether we can make it work well or at all??
A ?Confidential? May 26, 1993, Memorandum from Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA) to Hillary Clinton entitled, ?Health Care Reform Communications,? which criticizes the Task Force as a ?secret cabal of Washington policy ?wonks?? that has engaged in ?choking off information? from the public regarding health care reform. The memorandum suggests that Hillary Clinton ?use classic opposition research? to attack those who were excluded by the Clinton Administration from Task Force deliberations and to ?expose lifestyles, tactics and motives of lobbyists? in order to deflect criticism. Senator Rockefeller also suggested news organizations ?are anxious and willing to receive guidance [from the Clinton Administration] on how to time and shape their [news] coverage.? (Click here to read.)
A February 5, 1993, Draft Memorandum from Alexis Herman and Mike Lux detailing the Office of Public Liaison?s plan for the health care reform campaign. The memorandum suggests building an ?interest group data base? detailing whether or not organizations ?support(ed) us in the election.? The database would also track personal information about interest group leaders, such as their home phone numbers, addresses, ?biographies, analysis of credibility in the media, and known relationships with Congresspeople.? (Click here to read.)
We found these records amongst the approximately 13,000 made publicly available by the Clinton Library, specifically from the White House Health Care Interdepartmental Working Group. The National Archives admits there are an additional 3,022,030 additional textual records, 2,884 pages of electronic records, 1,021 photographs, 3 videotapes and 3 audiotapes related to the Task Force that are currently being withheld indefinitely from the public. Given what we found thus far, can you imagine what else is down there in Little Rock? (On November 2, 2007, we filed a lawsuit to obtain the Task Force records.)
Unsurprisingly, rather than engaging the American people on the issue of health care reform honestly, the Clintons and their allies attempted to track citizens? private and political information, smear administration critics, shroud their plan in secrecy, and manipulate news coverage. Some of this was dirty politics; some of it may have run afoul of the law.
Will anyone ask Hillary about it?
