Clinton confronts universal health care critic

by Sheri Divers [courtesy of Blog for America]

Senator Clinton appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists conference and seized an opportunity to attack GOP talking points against universal health care. See this New York Times blog post about it:

A Testy Exchange on Health Care

LAS VEGAS – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton just had an awfully testy exchange over universal health care with an audience member here at the National Association of Black Journalists conference – a lively moment that ended with an artful diss from Mrs. Clinton that had the audience hooting.

The audience member – who later identified himself as Kiara Ashanti, a freelance writer and blogger and a Republican – asked Mrs. Clinton why she was “still insisting” on bringing British- and Canada-style “socialized medicine” to the United States, asserting that such forms of universal care would hurt the black community.

“Oh man, I can’t answer that in 30 seconds, that was a string of misrepresentations,” Mrs. Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, told the gathering of more than 1,000 black reporters, editors, and other journalists.

“I have never advocated socialized medicine, and I hope all the journalists hear that,” she said. “That has been a right-wing attack on me for 15 years.”

Mr. Ashanti interrupted her with persistent criticism of government-run health care; Mrs. Clinton challenged him at one, asking if he thought Medicare was socialized medicine, and he indicated that he did.

“You are in a small minority of America, because Medicare has literally saved the lives and saved the resources of countless generations of Americans,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton praised the health systems in Canada, Britain, and elsewhere in Europe as having better outcomes and results on some performance measures than the United States. Then she offered to share her statistics with the if he wanted to introduce himself to her staff.

That is, she added, “if you’re interested in being educated instead of being rhetorical.”

It was a snap! moment that garnered Mrs. Clinton her biggest applause and cheers of the 40-minute forum.

Check out video here. Pretty good stuff!

-Sheri Divers