I published a new Op-Ed in the Daily Caller focusing on President Clinton’s recent statements criticizing President Obama over Obamacare. Some chutzpah, in light of the fact that Obama effectively stole Clinton’s plan after he won election in 2009. Here is the intro:
2016 draws near, the Clintons are already distancing themselves from the Obamacare rollout debacle. Recently, President Clinton faulted President Obama for misleading Americans, urging the 44th President to “honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.” Beyond the palpable chutzpah of President Clinton attacking Obama for misleading the public and not keeping promises, Bill Clinton’s criticism about the failures of the individual mandate should also be directed at his own wife.
In 2009, President Obama adopted Senator Clinton’s plan almost in its entirety. Obamacare is Hillarycare 2.0. All of the harmful consequences of Obama’s individual mandate — people losing their policies, higher premiums, and increased tax burdens — were the foreseeable consequences of Clinton’s plan. Any criticisms of Obamacare can be aimed equally at Hillary Clinton.
And the conclusion:
Hillary Clinton cannot run away from the Obamacare. Obama’s plan is her plan. All of the distortions to the healthcare market wrought by Obamacare and the individual mandate were her ideas first. In a 2016 presidential run, Clinton will once again have to defend her failed health care policy.
The Washington Examiner was on the same wave-length with an Op-Ed titled, “Hillary Clinton in 2007: ‘If you have a plan you like, you keep it'”
The remark came across as a stern rebuke of current White House policy — but it could also prove tricky for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is moving toward a bid for president in 2016.
When she was last a candidate for president in 2007, Hillary Clinton unveiled her own health care proposal, which, like Obamacare, included beefed-up benefits and a catchy pitch: “If you have a plan you like, you keep it.” Obama went on to defeat Clinton, but he adopted her tag line to help win support for his own health care plan — making the same promise, for which he recentlyapologized.