re: #465 Belafon

I thought pushing for universal healthcare would make someone popular.

You would think so: but back in the day, Congressional Republicans made damn sure that anything even approaching an implementation of “Hillarycare” would be DOA from the get-go: basically hatcheted to death by adamant obstructionism and misleading BS (sound familiar?).

Mrs. Clinton didn’t help herself much, though: the plan that was finally proposed was hugely (if necessarily) elaborate: written pretty much in secret without “outside” input, easy to be (mis-)characterized as “socialized medicine”: i.e. Bulgaria 1955; and tarred by association with the Clintons, who were being, even then, cast as a couple of political lepers by the Gingrich Congress.

The GOP, for years, gloated over the failure of “Hillarycare”; sadly, the negatives are all that seem to have stuck in the public’s memory.