By Elise Viebeck - 09-15-14 10:03 AM EDT
Hillary Clinton played a key role in making President Obama's healthcare law a reality, a retiring Democratic senator told a crowd in Iowa on Sunday.
Clinton's "fingerprints are all over" the Affordable Care Act, Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) said as he introduced the former secretary of State at his annual Steak Fry.
Harkin, who authored parts of ObamaCare, was referring to Clinton's efforts to expand healthcare access in the 1990s as first lady and later as a senator from New York.
"One of the things she always worked on was advancing this conception, this idea that healthcare should be a right and not a privilege," he said.
"So, Hillary was not there when the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, she was of course secretary of State, but I want you all to know that her fingerprints are all over the legislation.
"It would not have happened without her strenuous advocacy in that committee all those years,” he added.
Clinton served on Harkin's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee starting in 2001.
She was in Iowa over the weekend for the first time since her 2008 presidential loss there, a trip widely interpreted as laying the groundwork for another run in 2016.
In her 23-minute speech, Clinton showered praise on Harkin and urged Democrats to turn out in the midterm elections.
Harkin's ObamaCare remarks were first reported by Buzzfeed.
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