Clinton Friend Hubbell: Hillary Likely to Run, Win

Webster Hubbell, a longtime friend of the Clinton family, says he's convinced Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016 — and she'll win to become the nation's first female commander in chief.

"I haven't talked to her about it, but my bet is that she is going to run," Hubbell, who  served as an associate attorney general in the Justice Department under Bill Clinton, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

Clinton, former secretary of state under President Barack Obama, will be a strong candidate who is able to overcome challenges from more left-leaning members of the Democratic Party, Hubbell says.

"I do think she will be the nominee and she'll be president if she runs," he said.

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But Hubbell — the former mayor of Little Rock, Ark., and author of the novel "When Men Betray," to be published by Beaufort Books in May — says proposed cuts to Medicare could spell trouble for Democrats in upcoming races.

Last month, the Obama administration proposed a 1.9 percent cut in Medicare advantage payments.

"It's not Obamacare that will be the issue maybe in 2014 . . . The Obama administration is now proposing to tinker with Medicare and especially Part D of Medicare," said Hubbell, who is a transplant recipient.

"What probably is going to happen is that the insurance companies under Part D of Medicare are not required to cover anti-rejection medicine, which is what is being proposed.

"Then it would have to come out of pocket, and those medications, as you can imagine, are very expensive . . . It's a mistake medically, it's a mistake politically, and it's not good for the country. You're going to have a lot of elderly people who can't afford the medication."

Hubbell said he supported the concept of the Affordable Care Act but lamented that it had been altered drastically from its original form.

"It was a good attempt that got manipulated by the insurance companies to where it's not what it could be," he said.

"I'm personally a very strong supporter of a single-payer system . . . and I don't think [Obama] went far enough in that regard.

"The country as a whole needs to go where everyone has universal healthcare . . . There are people who are being denied coverage, there are people who are having to pay a lot more because they're being covered for things they don't need and those things are fixable."

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