What is it about Hillary?

[lazarus]

I didn't live in the US during the Clinton years. What did Hillary Clinton do to make her such a loathsome figure for the right? I can understand OJ, Sharpton, Bill Clinton, Tinkey Winkey, even Oprah but Hillary!

[Woody]

Laz .... for one thing she was appointed by her husband to "solve" Health Care. She held secret meetings and tried to push "No Choice" health care down our throats. She is behind big government. She wanted big brother to decide which doctors you could go to. Luckily America said a big NO to her.

[Gail]

But don't the insurance companies decide which doctors you can go to and what medications you can take?

[Dr. Shane]

That depends on the insurance plan a person has. Many insurance companies contract with doctors to get special rates. Blue Cross Blue Shield, for example, may contract with a doctor to pay him $35/consultation. If the patient has a $20 co-pay, that means the insurance company only pays $15 if the patient goes to that doctor. If the insurance company doesn't have a contract with the doctor across the street, they will end up paying $55 - $75 for a consultation there. So insurance companies often have a list of doctors in their plan and the patient has to pay more to visit a doctor outside of their plan.

Hilary Clinton offended many American housewives when she said that she isn't a wife that stays home and bakes cookies. She made a mocking reference to some Tammy Wynette song, "Stand By Your Man". Of course a few years later, during the Lewinsky scandal, she found herself fulfilling the words of the song she had earlier mocked.

Here is Wikipedia's take Hillary Rodham Clinton controversies

[Woody]

But don't the insurance companies decide which doctors you can go to and what medications you can take?

Gail .... I have Medicare. I can go to any doctor or therapist etc. I pay the same to go to any doctor anywhere. Hillary wanted to change this and ONLY allow me to go to certain doctors etc.

My condition is unique. Many doctors and therapists do not know how to teat my condition. I would not have received the care I needed under Hillary's plan.

[olger]

Her voice is inherently irritating as well.

All the best,

oG

[Guest]

There are many health insurances in the US that use *networks*.. If you belong to a Sisters of Profit...I mean, Sisters of Providence network, most likely you will be required to go use their hospitals and their contracted physicians. Adventist Risk Management used to use was is called the MHN network. That limited the patient to use only doctors and facilities who were part of that network. Sometimes, if you have a *good* plan, you can go *out-of-network* and go anywhere you choose, but you have to pay a higher deductible and a higher co-insurance, as Shane alluded to.

There are some Medicare plans which require you to use ONLY their contracted facility and physicians. In addition, the physician must convince the insurance company that the treatment is necessary....pre-authorization it is called. THAT, IMHO, is second guessing the physician. The administrator for the imaging company I worked for actually called and spoke to the Medical Director of one large insurance company to try and help a patient receive services. We were told by that Medical Director that the insurance company was NOT interested in providing services for the patient....no indeed...he said his job was to save the insurance company money.

[Woody]

All the above is true. That is why I don't belong to an HMO. I prefer choice. I prefer not to have to have preauthorizations or second guessing. I prefer to be able to access what Medicare allows and not what an insurance company allows.

Hey .... if you like HMOs and preferred providers .... then vote for Hillary. For me personally .... I take my medical care as top priority. My health suffers greatly when I give control to an insurance company who is "NOT interested in providing services for the patient....no indeed...he said his job was to save the insurance company money."

By the way .... I have no deductibles and no co insurance. My secondary covers 100% of everything that Medicare doesn't pick up. I pay nothing except my premiums. And I used to work for The Sisters of Providence ... I know all about preferred providers. No thanks.

This is why for the sake of my health .... I have to vote for anyone other than Hillary.

[Bravus]

(the original question assumes that wingers hatred of Hillary is rational)

[olger]

Must we use the word "hatred" as a blanket to lay over any and all objections? I didn't think so...

John the Baptist did not hate Herod.

Thanks,

olger

[Bravus]

Fair point: but have you read a lot of the right wing sites' language about Hillary? 'hatred' is pretty much the only descriptive word. I wasn't talking about the thoughtful and reasoned responses of people here, and I apologise for not clarifying that. But I thought Laz's original question was broader than the opinions of people here, and that's what I was responding to. Happy to rephrase, though:

(the original question assumes that wingers passionate dislike of Hillary is rational)

[Amelia]

Quote:

If you belong to a Sisters of Profit...

and sooo true. But you forgot to mention the Larceny network aka Legacy.

[Neil D]

Or United {Bad} Health.... Recently the doctors of Rogue Valley [southern Oregon] had enough of being denied payments and collectively rejected all United Health insurance claims...They were not getting the moneys that they contracted and were resubmitting claims for the least thing...ie crossing the "T"s and dotting the "i"s...

[Neil D]

Laz .... for one thing she was appointed by her husband to "solve" Health Care. She held secret meetings and tried to push "No Choice" health care down our throats. She is behind big government. She wanted big brother to decide which doctors you could go to. Luckily America said a big NO to her.

"Secret meetings"? "No Choice" Health care??? Hmmmmm....don't recall that....And it seems to me that she specifically stated that you DO have a choice in the redesigned health care industrated.

[Woody]

Secret Meetings refers to the fact that she refused to disclosed who was invited and in attendance. And yes ... she tried to make it "look" like there was choice while she was actually reducing the choices you would have. And what little choices you kept ... you would have to pay a whole lot more for.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

'hatred' is pretty much the only descriptive word. I

I agree with this. I think there was as much hatred for President Clinton as there is now for President Bush and much of that hatred toward Bill is now spilling over onto Hillary. However, some of our liberal members here have asked us not to use the word "hatred" in connection with the anti-Bush crowd so I guess it would only be fair for some of our conservative members to ask the word not be used with the anti-Hillary crowd.

[there buster]

Quote:

I think there was as much hatred for President Clinton as there is now for President Bush

There were no assassination jokes on TV, no books and movies depicting the assassination of Bill Clinton. The level of vitriol against Bush has accelerated by at least an order of magnitude.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

There were no assassination jokes on TV, no books and movies depicting the assassination of Bill Clinton.

That may just be because the anti-Clinton folks were a little more rational, not that they hated him any less.

[Bravus]

yeah, Shane, when olger made the comment I remembered when I had asked you not to use 'Bush-hate' to describe disagreements with Bush administration policy, so I definitely saw the justice of olger's comment, and edited accordingly.

[Jeannieb43]

To try to answer the original question:

I think sometimes Hillary's voice and demeanor are somewhat masculine, even though her makeup, costuming and coiffure are totally feminine and currently stylish.

But back to the medical care crisis thing, I believe Bill was well aware of Hillary's exceptional grasp of such things, and he knew she had a good way of negotiationg with people holding adverse positions, so he asked her to do a little prep work on the medical insurance problem. From what I recall hearing, her proposal was to build the framework for a Medicare-like healthcare plan for the whole country. That is NOT bad. That is only having a single-payer system (something like the Medicare system, which works VERY well) so that it would remove the rivalry among insurance companies and would also cover every citizen alike.

Unfortunately, the Republicans had their feelings hurt and started looking for some way to torpedo the whole plan.

Our country has never been so polarized politically in my memory. In the days of Goldwater (when I worked the precincts for his election) there were obvious differences between Repubs and Dems, but there was not the name-calling, vicious polarized abyss between the right and the left that we have today. I read somewhere that it was during Reagan's tenure that our country became polarized. When one side is pitted against the other, and people start throwing brickbats at anybody who doesn't "toe the line" as they see it, our democratic republic suffers as a result.

I think that was one reason for the failure of the health plan as being crafted by Hillary's committee.

=========

In either TIME or NEWSWEEK I read a quote from one of the high-ranking Republicans which (paraphrased) said: "When asked which one of the current candidates for President had the best grasp of the situation in Iraq, he answered, 'You mean, Other than Hillary?'"

There seems to be no question but what Hillary is the best qualified of all the presidential candidates, Repub or Dem. The only question is whether or not she can win an election.

[there buster]

She has all her husband's faults, and none of his charm.

[Neil D]

Secret Meetings refers to the fact that she refused to disclosed who was invited and in attendance. And yes ... she tried to make it "look" like there was choice while she was actually reducing the choices you would have. And what little choices you kept ... you would have to pay a whole lot more for.

OOoooooh...you mean, when she got all the divergent people with various views on the subject, minus all the lobbiests and monetary persuaders into one room and tried to hammer out a govermental policy that would actually reform health care and create CHANGE in the healthcare system....That's what you mean by "secret meetings"....

Oh, ok....that's symantics...or one point of view....

Um...you do realize, don't you, that if we had a health care insurance across the board, for everyone, and everyone had to pay into it, it wont be the cheapest amount we would be forced to pay, but at the same time, it will not be the most expensive health insurance that is currently out there.... You do realize that don't you....?

Currently, we have a hog-pog of plans that have various insurance plans out there that ALL make alot money for someone at the top of each insurance company...Some more lucrative than other, but they all make money for thier CEOs....And guess who has to give that money to those CEOs?

[bevin]

Hillary v Newt would make for an interesting race

I think that the Republicans should run

Cheney/GWB

as their ticket...

It is interesting trying to think of a Democratic ticket that could loose to them...

/Bevin

[bevin]

The current health care system in the USA is weird. The best treatments are available to those who can pay for them - but the simple treatments are outrageously expensive.

One of the dumbest examples of this is Aspirin.

Part of the standard protocol for chest pain is to give the patient 4 baby aspirin - total cost about 10 cents. But do you think we carry a bottle of them in the ambulance? No way.

Each shift I open my med box and check all my meds - including that exactly 8 Aspirin pills, individually wrapped and expiry-dated, are present.

After giving the patient 4 of them, I have to replace them in the ER.

I go to a nurse, and they go to their drug dispensing machine, and enter their name and password and the patient's name - then they hand me four precious foil-wrapped pills. The patient's insurance gets billed. I take the precious pills and unlock my drug box and carefully place them in the right slot.

What a waste of time and energy for 10 cents worth of pills.

Guess what the bill for 10 cents worth of pills is...

/Bevin

ps: In case you think this makes sense, Nitroglycerin is the other chest pain med, along with oxygen. We carry nitro in a little brown pill bottle - and I take one out of the bottle and place it under the patient's tongue - and get the whole bottle replaced when it runs low...

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

The ER where I worked also got samples of drugs from pharmaceutical reps to be handed out to patients according to need...especially the expensive ones. They were kept in an unlocked drawer in the ER physician's chart room. The patient never got charged for those samples. Now if the *Pharmacy Dept* got hold of the samples, they would dispense those, AND charge the patient. Kinda irritating to know the truth behind the medicine facade.

And Bevin is right...last time I saw aspirin listed on a patient's bill it was over $3/tablet.