Bill Clinton Calls Obamacare a 'Crazy System' That 'Doesn't Work Here'

Former president Bill Clinton criticized President Obama's signature healthcare law while campaigning for his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, calling Obamacare "the craziest thing in the world" — drawing a difference between her and the president at a time she's looking to connect herself to him.

At a Democratic rally in Flint, Michigan, on Monday, Clinton struck at the core of the Affordable Care Act for flooding the health care insurance market with new customers paying into a system, while causing premiums to rise — sometimes dramatically — for middle-class Americans who do not qualify for subsidies.

"So you've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world," Clinton said.

Clinton, who worked with his wife to overhaul the health care system in the 1990s but was shut out by Congress and a strong insurance lobby, told the audience that the current system "doesn't make sense" and "doesn't work here."

Instead, the former president was pitching a new system that would allow Americans without subsidies to buy into Medicare or Medicaid.

"On the other hand, the current system works fine if you're eligible for Medicaid, if you're a lower-income working person; if you're already on Medicare, or if you get enough subsidies on a modest income that you can afford your health care," Clinton said. "But the people that are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies."

Although Hillary Clinton has proposed an expansion of the Affordable Care Act, she has often sought to link herself to President Obama's reform, frequently saying on the campaign trail, "You know, before it was called Obamacare it was called Hillarycare."

At a Democratic primary debate in Milwaukee in February, she said, "I am a staunch supporter of President Obama's principal accomplishment, namely the Affordable Care Act."

However, the former president's remarks Monday night give the appearance of a major difference between his wife and Obama precisely at a time she has sought to draw a strong connection to him.

Since being signed into law, Obama has said that he is open to adjusting the Affordable Care Act through debate, but the administration has said that Republicans in Congress have been unwilling to engage in conversations and instead have opted to repeated attempts to repeal the legislation.

"What I would also say is that since the very first day the President signed this bill into law, he acknowledged an openness to working with Democrats or Republicans in Congress to further strengthen it," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest at a Monday briefing. "And we have seen a sustained commitment on the part of Republicans to trying to tear down that law."

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons