Clinton Touts Traditional Chinese Medicine

But still no cure for yellow fever, Clinton tells donors

SAN FRANCISCO—Traditional Chinese medicine may be the solution to our nation’s health care crisis, Hillary Clinton declared at a fundraising banquet in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where she unveiled her plan for universal health care in America. The plan advocates time-tested Chinese folk remedies as an inexpensive means to achieve universal coverage without a cumbersome national bureaucracy.

Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, uses a holistic approach to maintain a balance between the body’s yin and yang forces. Add that to general wellness practices like daily Tai Chi exercise sessions and a vegetable-rich diet, said the presidential hopeful, and the outcome is a recipe for a healthy America.

The Clinton plan envisions Americans soon choosing from among an exciting array of treatment options, to include acupuncture, herbal remedies, healing arts, hot-cold massage, and Chinese white magic. As in the Chinese model, government will step in only to provide high-priority procedures, namely free and confidential abortions to women of all ages.

The best part of the plan, Clinton told donors, is that millions of Americans will be allowed to keep their current coverage: recipients of government entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Veterans’ Administration care will see no changes. Middle- and upper-income Americans will pay out-of-pocket for low-priced TCM treatments as described above. Money now paid for insurance premiums could then be redirected to extend government health care, first to illegal immigrants and then to healthy people temporarily between jobs and those who simply choose not to purchase coverage.

Most of the Clinton supporters in the Chinatown ballroom were drawn from the Bay Area’s sizeable Chinese-American community. The guest of honor was retired Chinese intelligence chief, Col. Zhang Wu. Clinton received the endorsement of various organizations, including the Society for the Practice of Chinese Medicine, the American Acupuncturists Guild, and the Chinese Communist Party.

Clinton told the crowd that her interest in Chinese medicine began after the collapse of her ill-fated health care debacle as First Lady. “After 1994 it was clear we needed a fresh approach. And that’s when I learned that while TCM is much less costly than a Canadian- or European-style system, the quality of care is the same,” she said. Clinton illustrated the potential savings by comparing the cost to treat a heart patient by Western and Chinese methods: thousands of dollars for bypass surgery, versus as little as $12 for a traditional mixture of ginger root and wild mushroom spores. “How’s that for prescription drug coverage?” she added.

The luncheon left many of the attending Chinese medicine practitioners in high spirits. If Clinton laid one thing plain, it was that Plan Hillary will have Americans scrambling for alternative sources of medical care.


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