Bill Clinton to Democrats: Health Care 'Doesn't Have to Be Perfect'
Patricia Murphy
Capitol Hill Bureau Chief
Posted:
03/16/10
Former President Bill Clinton went to the Senate Democrats' weekly policy lunch Tuesday to talk about climate change legislation, but health care reform was also on his mind.
"It doesn't have to be perfect," he told reporters on his way out the door. "Just remember that the economists at USC and Harvard said that if any version of these bills passes it will bend the cost curve in health care so much that it will add 250,000 to 400,000 jobs a year in the economy for a decade."
The former president speaks from hard-won experience. His efforts to pass health care reform in his first term went down in defeat and are blamed for Republicans' huge victories in the 1994 midterm elections.
Still, Clinton said Democrats must push ahead.
"Maybe Hillary will be the happiest person on earth, and I'll be the second-happiest person on earth -- even more than President Obama, even more than Rahm [Emanuel], even more than all the people who have been laboring for this for so long," he said. "I just want it to pass."
"It doesn't have to be perfect," he told reporters on his way out the door. "Just remember that the economists at USC and Harvard said that if any version of these bills passes it will bend the cost curve in health care so much that it will add 250,000 to 400,000 jobs a year in the economy for a decade."
The former president speaks from hard-won experience. His efforts to pass health care reform in his first term went down in defeat and are blamed for Republicans' huge victories in the 1994 midterm elections.
Still, Clinton said Democrats must push ahead.
"Maybe Hillary will be the happiest person on earth, and I'll be the second-happiest person on earth -- even more than President Obama, even more than Rahm [Emanuel], even more than all the people who have been laboring for this for so long," he said. "I just want it to pass."