Clinton Talks Tech at .com Forum

ABC News' Julie Percha reports: At a forum to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Internet, Former President Bill Clinton plugged his foundation’s efforts of improving global health – but not without making a statement on the current health care debate in Washington.

“There is this unreal debate that actually acts like what we’ve got is worth preserving,” Clinton said while delivering the keynote at VeriSign’s 25th Anniversary of .Com Policy Impact Forum in Washington, D.C. “We insist on spending money nobody else in the world would ever even think of spending money on.”

Clinton said that the U.S. spends 17.2 percent of income on health care costs – topping the list of the richest countries with the most expensive health care system by almost one trillion dollars per year – but is still is ranked 35th overall in health care effectiveness. 

“If we had any other country’s health system – just pick one, any one – we’d save $250 million right off the top,” he said, citing administrative costs as a major spending factor.

He said that the U.S. is “really good” at certain aspects of health care – such as aggressive treatment s for cancer and heart disease – but maintained that too much is spent on medical errors.

“The real problem in health care is that we pay too much and get too little,” he said.

Clinton spoke about his non-governmental organization, The William J. Clinton Foundation, which focuses on overcoming the challenges of global interdependence through HIV/AIDS treatment, climate change action and efforts to combat childhood obesity in America, among other platforms.

He said the Internet has become a tool for helping the Foundation in its mission of reducing inequality, unsustainability and instability in the third world. Clinton plugged the Massive Good program, an online fundraiser which allows airline ticket purchasers to add a donation to their cost to fight HIV, tuberculosis and malaria abroad, and also cited cell phone text donations to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund as another example of technology in fundraising.

On the issue of technology, Clinton was quick to cite political Web sites – including the Huffington Post, Politico.com and the Daily Beast – as among his favorite sites.  

“The reason I like the political web sites is because they don’t pretend to [not] have a political bias,” he said. “That’s why I don’t have any problem watching FOX News — because they don’t pretend to be unbiased. They say they’re ‘fair and balanced,’ but it’s tongue in cheek.”

As the first president to open a White House Web site, Clinton is not a stranger to technology – but he admitted that he tries to limit his daily BlackBerry usage so as not to become obsessed with e-mails and apps. He said his predecessor, President George Bush, is such an avid e-mailer that he “might as well be a teenager.”

Clinton added that though he loves his iPhone, he does not own the new electronic book reading device, the Kindle.

“I have to hold on to some of my creakiness,” he said.