Bill Clinton Says His Wife Took the Rap on Health Care

New York Times reported Former President Bill Clinton said Thursday that he should receive more blame than his wife for the failed attempt to revamp the nation’s health care system more than a decade ago.

Was it your fault it would not work? And won't you be with her this time?

“You know how much she cares about this,”

That is immaterial. It will hurt health care in this country. And then where will sick Canadians and Europeans go, since they have destroyed health care in their countries.

Mr. Clinton told an audience in Glenwood, Iowa, according to an account on MSNBC. “She has taken the rap for some of the problems we had with health care the last time that were far more my fault than hers.”

In her Democratic presidential bid, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has placed health care at the heart of her domestic policy agenda. Her rivals have sought to portray her experience on health care as an example of why a fresh approach is needed to truly change and improve the system.

They have not shown their plans will not work. She has.

As he campaigned here Thursday, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois said Mrs. Clinton could not claim credit for trying to overhaul health care if she did not accept any of the blame.

“All I know is that part of the record she’s running on is having worked on health care,” he said, “so it’s kind of hard to gauge if one of her claims is to have experience in this issue to then suggest that somehow she doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it didn’t work.”