Hillary Clinton healthy, quite wealthy
WASHINGTON—Hillary Clinton is healthy and “fit to serve” as US president, her doctor affirmed Friday, as the Democratic White House frontrunner also revealed details about her family’s substantial personal wealth.
Tax data released by Clinton’s campaign show she and husband Bill Clinton, the former president, paid a massive $57.5 million in taxes since 2007.
Clinton did not release income figures, but by extrapolating her annual combined tax rate of about 40 percent over the period — she stated their 2013 tax rate at 44.6 percent and 2014 at 45.8 percent, the highest rate — it is clear the Clintons took in well over $100 million in eight years.
Physician Lisa Bardack of Mount Kisco Medical Group in New York said Clinton, 67, was enjoying a healthy lifestyle and has fully recovered from the effects of a concussion suffered in 2012 — an incident which had prompted questions about her health.
“She is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as president of the United States,” Bardack stated in a letter distributed by the Clinton team.
Article continues after this advertisementHer campaign said that by providing the data, Clinton became “the first presidential candidate in this election cycle” to release his or her health information.
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It offered details of Clinton’s traumatic head injury in December 2012 when, according to the doctor, Clinton “suffered a stomach virus after traveling, became dehydrated, fainted, and sustained a concussion.”
An evaluation discovered a blood clot in her brain, and she experienced double vision. She was treated for the conditions, including the use of anticoagulation therapy and glasses featuring a Fresnel prism.
“Her concussion symptoms, including the double vision, resolved within two months and she discontinued the use of the prism,” Bardack said.
Follow-up testing in 2013 “revealed complete resolution of the effects of the concussion.”
Clinton’s standard laboratory test results were normal, and her cancer screening evaluations were all negative, Bardack said.
On the Clinton’s financial health, their vast wealth does not come as a surprise. The couple are the heaviest of political heavyweights, and have earned tens of millions of dollars in speaking fees.
In 2013 alone Hillary Clinton earned $8.5 million from 36 speaking engagements, according to the data released Friday.
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Bill Clinton earned at least $13 million from 41 speeches in the same period, including a trio of speeches in China over three straight days that earned him $1.7 million.
The revelations come as candidate Clinton seeks to embrace the role as fighter for America’s middle-class and downtrodden.
In June 2014, she was mocked for saying she and her husband left the White House “dead broke” and in debt in 2001.
Republican Jeb Bush released 33 years of tax returns in late June.
Those records showed that Bush, the son and brother of two presidents, has made $29 million since leaving the Florida governor’s mansion in 2007, including $7.36 million in 2013.