Hillary Clinton Takes On Congressional Republicans Over Obamacare

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the Affordable Care Act and criticized House Republicans at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City. Getty Images

At a Clinton Global Initiative panel discussion on women’s health, Hillary Clinton momentarily turned the conversation to Washington politics when she offered a full-throated defense of the Affordable Care Act and laid into a “noisy minority” of Republicans threatening to shutdown the government over the bill.

Clinton’s riff on the current affairs of the capital, where House Republicans are attempting to defund President Obama’s landmark health care bill, marked a notably partisan moment for the former secretary of state. Clinton has kept quite this year on much of what happens inside the Beltway.

“I find the debate over this issue to be quite unfortunate,” Clinton said Tuesday, on a panel moderated by CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta about women’s health. “A law was passed. It was upheld by the Supreme Court. It is the law of the land.”

To affect a contrast with what she described as today’s “noisy minority” of House Republicans, Clinton cited past health care bills, specifically George W. Bush’s Medicare Part D benefit, which also presented implementation challenges but was met with less opposition by lawmakers on the right. “You didn’t have obstructionist members of Congress once the vote was taken,” said Clinton.

Clinton, a possible presidential candidate in 2016, did acknowledge that Democrats could stand to benefit from Republican threats in Washington to shutdown the government over funding for the bill. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing for Democrats if they tried to shut the government down,” she said. “We’ve seen that movie before. It didn’t work out too well.”

“If they want to try to shut the government down,” Clinton added, “that’s on their head — that’s their responsibility.”

But Clinton said that if Republicans “go even further” by refusing to raise the debt ceiling over the issue, sending the country into default, “that is not just partisan politics, that is going to the heart of our credibility around the world,” she said. “I hope that smarter, cooler heads prevail and that we deal with our budget and we deal with our debt limit.”

Clinton, calling Obama’s health care reform a “significant step forward,” did acknowledge the bill wasn’t infallible. “Nobody is saying it’s a perfect bill. I served in the senate for eight years — there is no such thing as a perfect bill.”

She also gestured toward the public messaging problems the Obama administration has faced with the measure, stressing that while people may “agree with the specifics” of health care reform, “they have been in effect convinced the overall program is not to their liking.

“We’re in this sort of bipolar political world,” Clinton said.

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Hillary Clinton On A Female President: "Someday I Hope It Happens"

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea Clinton appear on stage at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting Tuesday in New York. Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting Tuesday afternoon that electing a woman to the White House would send “a very strong statement.”

“Someday I hope it happens,” she said with a smile, in response to a question from moderator Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a host on CNN.

Gupta asked Clinton, who is mulling a second bid for the presidency in 2016, how important it is to her personally to see a woman hold the position of commander in chief for the first time. The question, phrased in a way that made Clinton let loose a booming laugh, was Gupta’s last of the afternoon at a panel on women’s health.

“That is a question I will answer taking myself totally out of it,” Clinton said, alongside three other panelists. “It is, for me, a part of a larger mission to expand participation and leadership among women around the world.”

Clinton described the landmark goal as “symbolic,” but added that “symbolism is efficacious.”

“We have a lot of challenges,” she said. “Electing one person, a woman, is not going to end those challenges, but it provides the kind of boost to the efforts that so many of us have been making for so long.”

“So I guess the short answer is, I think it would be important,” Clinton said. “It’s not going to solve all our problems, but I think it would be a very strong statement that would be made to half our population, and half the world’s population.”

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