Ready to Run? Hillary Tells Dems to Lay Off Medicare for All and Downs Could-Be Opponent Elizabeth Warren

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, accompanied by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., smiles as they sit on stage at a rally at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Hillary Clinton has a message for 2020 Democratic candidates: Lay off the “Medicare for All” talk.

“Which Hillary Clinton is he talking about,” you may wonder.

That’d be the Hillary Clinton who pushed for socialized medicine in 1993 as first lady, only to have her thunder ultimately stolen down the road by what ended up labeled as Obamacare.

🙁

Appearing at the New York Times DealBook conference, Hillary publicly provided the free advice.

When asked what she thought about Elizabeth Warren’s proposed single-payer, $52 trillion dollar solution (see much more here), she offered this:

“I think the debate within the Democratic Party is a very healthy debate to try to figure out how to achieve the goal of covering everybody with quality, affordable health care.”

But she reminded everyone it’s something she’s been doing for a long time:

“My view on this, having been working on it for many years now, is that the Affordable Care Act took us to 90 percent of coverage, the highest we have ever gotten in our country after many, many efforts…we have a 10-percent gap to fill, and we have a lot of learning to do about the best way not only to fill the gap but then to drive down costs as much as it’s possible, to do so without undermining quality advancements.”

Of course, one reason for that 90% is that the government forced people to purchase health insurance.

And when she says we’ve got “a lot of learning to do” in the way of decreasing cost to consumers, she ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie.

From The Daily Wire:

The penalty (for not purchasing) was intrusive and, ultimately, forced those who did not want insurance to purchase plans that became increasingly expensive as more people joined the insurance pool. For those consumers who did not qualify for subsidies, plans could cost upwards of $10,000 per year, some with deductibles of nearly $15,000.

But Hillary’s down on Liz’s idea:

“I don’t believe we should be in the midst of a big disruption while we are trying to get to 100-percent coverage and deal with costs and face some tough issues about competitiveness and other kinds of innovation in health care.”

It isn’t her first time to speak out against a single-payer system. In 2016, Clinton touted the Affordable Care Act to an audience at Grand View University, raking then-opponent Uncle Bernie’s utopian healthcare vision:

“People who have health emergencies can’t wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass.”

Now, she’s fixed on Elizabeth — and she’s no fan of championing a wealth tax, either:

“If you were going to do a wealth tax and it was on assets…how you would value it is, I think, complicated to start with,” she continued. “But, assuming you can get some system of evaluation, people would literally have to sell assets to pay the tax on the assets that they owned before the wealth tax was levied. That would be incredibly disruptive, so I think there are other ways to raise the revenues.”

Is it strange for Hillary to be downing the primary Democratic candidate in the public square? Back in September, I covered a pairing of the two gals for anti-Trump ignition (here).

It seemed Hillary was Team Liz.

But now, might there be a shift in the delivery due to Clinton’s plan to jump onto the track, hit the gas, and speed right past Pocahontas?

On the way to White House glory, Elizabeth’s her #1 challenger.

We could be watching it come together, ladies and gents. Hillary 2020 may be rising before our eyes.

And if so, she has a message about a certain former Harvard law professor: “I’m (Not) With Her.”

She just might be…