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Clinton’s team behind on the bills

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From Newsday

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton promotes healthcare as a top focus of her presidential bid, but her campaign’s accountants aren’t staying on message.

The campaign reported nearly $300,000 worth of unpaid health insurance bills for campaign staff as part of $8.73 million in debts, Federal Election Commission records show.

The New York Democrat’s campaign fund owed $229,000 to Aetna Healthcare and $63,000 to CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield for unpaid premiums as of Feb. 29, the latest information available in federal filings.

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Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said that the campaign had paid the debts in full and that no campaign staff member had suffered a gap in coverage.

“Sometimes invoices are not paid immediately because we need additional information for our records, or to verify expenses,” Carson wrote in an e-mail.

The lag in paying insurance bills is a sign of a bigger issue facing the Clinton camp -- namely, $8.7 million of reported debt in February. Clinton is being heavily outspent by rival Sen. Barack Obama.

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