Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) on Wednesday at the Henderson Convention Center in Henderson, Nev., said that health care reform efforts led by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) in the 1990s failed because she conducted negotiations in private and that he would televise negotiations on his health care proposal on C-SPAN, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
On Thursday, Obama discussed his health care proposal in an interview with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. He said, "I admire the fact that President Clinton and Sen. Clinton tried to reform health care (in the 1990s).But I believe they did it in the wrong way." He added, "Their theory was you go behind closed doors, you come up with your theory with the help of your technical experts.
You don't even invite members of Congress from your own party into the negotiations and discussion. And while they were behind closed doors, the insurance company was busy shaping public opinion as well as maneuvering Congress, and by the time they released it ... it was dead in the water."
Obama said, "I would have a table, around which you'd have doctors, nurses, patient advocates. The insurance ...companies would get a seat at the table; they just would not get to buy every chair."
He added, "I would put my plan forward ... and these negotiations would be on C-SPAN ... so the public would be part of the conversation and would see the choices being made".
Source-Kaiser Family Foundation
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