Former Secretary of State and frontrunner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president Hillary Clinton met with area supporters in Burlington on Wednesday to speak on how she differs from Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Clinton warmed up the large crowd of area supporters that filled the Pzazz Convention Center by having a video montage of her years of service as a political figure and then she took the stage to elaborate on some of her trials and victories in Washington.
As the next president she said she would build on the progress that President Barack Obama has made saying that, Obama doesn’t get enough credit for pulling the country and the economy back out of the recession that he inherited from former Republican President George W. Bush.
After she expressed her support for Obama’s Affordable Care Act and explained how it has taken from health insurance companies the ability to “call the shots,” Clinton then went into how her and Sanders while both Democrats differ on the health care issue.
Clinton says that, “In all those twenty-years, he never got a sponsor in the Senate or got a vote in the house and right before the last debate, he changed his plan and put out an eight page summary of his new plan which is a single payer plan, which would require total new legislation starting from scratch.”
Clinton doesn’t want to start from scratch she wants to continue on with the Affordable Care Act while improving upon it.
“I don’t want to plant our nation back into a contentious divisive debate. I sure don’t want to give any room to the Republicans -to repeal it. I want to fix it, I want to improve it, and I have specific plans to do that,” says Clinton.
Clinton’s specific plan to bring down healthcare costs for Americans involves helping them with out of pocket expenses and capping prescription drug costs. She says that drug companies will have to negotiate with Medicare.
Another distinction that Clinton made between herself and Sanders is how they have different ideas about regulating Wall Street.
She says that focusing on regulating big banks alone is not enough, investment, mortgage, and insurance companies also need to be regulated. Clinton foreshadows that shadow-banking is something that needs to be looked at closely because it may prove to be disastrous to the economy.
Clinton touched on national security and foreign affairs saying that she is the only candidate that has a specific plan for defeating ISIS.
She says, “I agree that we have to lead an air-coalition to deprive them of territory. To go after their territory. To go after their infrastructure and leadership, and support the fighters on the the ground, the Arabs and the Kurdish fighters. But I will not send American ground troops!”
She also wants to go after their financial resources and eliminate their ability to use the internet to gain followers and coordinate attacks.
In the closing of her speech Clinton vowed that she would put more effort and focus on addressing mental health issues which is something that she says has been overlooked and undervalued.
She encouraged everyone that in attendance to go out and caucus for her on February 1st.
