Hillarycare

HILLARYCARE....In the venture capital biz, running a business into the ground is no badge of shame. Venture capitalists know that 80% of their startups will fail, and they generally figure that someone who's failed once probably learned something from the experience and will do better the next time. If you come back asking for money for a second startup, there's a good chance you'll get it.

In politics this is much less the case, despite the fact that a very high failure rate is to be expected there too. The reason I mention this is that one of the longtime knocks against Hillary Clinton has been the failure of her 1994 healthcare plan, for which she deservedly gets plenty of blame. But what does this mean? That she's gun shy and won't ever try again? Or that she learned something from the experience and will be better able to navigate the political currents next time? Well, it turns out that someone asked her exactly this at YearlyKos and Matt Yglesias claims that, in response, she "hit the ball out of the park."

But what did she actually say? Unfortunately, I can't find a transcript or a video, but Ezra Klein summarizes it this way:

1. It's not enough to have a plan, you need to have a political strategy, too.
2. It's imperative that as we go forward we put together a coalition of as many groups who'll be affected -- doctors nurses, hospital administrators, etc -- as possible, and steel them to withstand the incredible blowback we'll get from the drug companies and insurers. In other words, you need a proactive, sympathetic coalition able to create a counterweight to industry forces.
3. I learned a lot about the tactical end of things. I don't have the time in 90 seconds to tell you of all the mistakes I made, but being in the Senate has taught me an enormous amount about how to marry my proposal with the process. This will be my highest domestic priority.