DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Christians4LessGvt on April 01, 2008, 09:47:23 AM
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HILLARY'S HEALTH-CARE ISSUE: HER 292G DEBT
By GEOFF EARLE
April 1, 2008 -- WASHINGTON -
Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose health-care plan would require every American to get insurance, owes health-insurance companies nearly $300,000 in payments to cover her own campaign staff, records reveal.
Clinton's campaign owes $229,000 to health-insurance giant Aetna and another $63,000 to CareFirst, which provides insurance coverage for her staff.
The debts, first reported by Politico.com, are part of a $9 million debt her campaign disclosed in documents filed with the feds.
The Clinton campaign provides health care to its employees and their families but was still in hock to the insurance giants as of the campaign-filing deadline last month. The campaign says the balance will be paid in full by next month's filing.
The potentially damaging revelation came as Barack Obama delivered yet another blow to her campaign - by scoring the endorsement of Minnesota's first-term senator, Amy Klobuchar.
Klobuchar, a superdelegate who gets to cast a vote at the party's national convention this summer, is the second female senator to endorse Obama.
She said the candidate speaks in a "different voice" and noted his impressive victory over Clinton in the Minnesota caucuses.
"Between Barack and a hard place, I chose Barack," she said, adding that she also likes Clinton.
"I believe that Sen. Clinton has every right to continue her campaign," she said, days after Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont urged Clinton to get out of the race.
Obama has now equaled Clinton in the number of endorsements received from fellow senators - 13 each.
Clinton has made the issue of health coverage a centerpiece of her campaign, arguing that her "individual mandate" is superior to Obama's plan, which relies on incentives to encourage people to get insurance.
On the issue of her falling behind in payments for her own staff's coverage, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told The Post, "No one actually lost their health care."
"Our cash flow is good. Bills are being paid," he told MSNBC.
The Clinton campaign had been blasting out e-mail requests for contributions of as little as $5 in advance of yesterday's monthly filing deadline.
Most of the charges for the Aetna bill are two months old, a sign that the campaign is carrying over some of its debts in order to cover other campaign costs.
The campaign lists a $3,161 debt owed to Maine South HS, Clinton's alma mater in Park Ridge, Ill., for "catering/venue" costs. She spoke to an audience there by videoconference on Feb. 4.
A person in the school's administration office didn't know what the debt was for.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04012008/news/nationalnews/hillarys_health_care_issue__her_292g_deb_104496.htm (http://www.nypost.com/seven/04012008/news/nationalnews/hillarys_health_care_issue__her_292g_deb_104496.htm)