It is also a story of strategic miscalculation on the part of the president and those of us who advised him. According to James A. Morone, professor and chair of political science at Brown University and co-author of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office , the failure of Clinton's healthcare reform bill led to historic losses for Democrats during the November midterm elections.
Morone wrote, "The boomerang from the Clinton health care reform failure led, three months later, to the widest Republican midterm sweep in the 20th century victories in the Senate, House, state legislatures, and governor's offices in November, While Hillary Clinton took much of the blame for the failure of President Clinton's healthcare bill, she also attempted to use "Hillarycare" to her advantage on the campaign trail in by associating it with Obamacare.
Is it accurate to blame her for the bill's failure, as Republicans and members of the media did and still do? Can she take responsibility for creating the legislation, as she has done in campaign speeches and debates?
To answer these questions, an examination of her role in the effort to pass the Health Security Act is necessary. Essentially, she was responsible for the political and public relations effort to get the bill passed, but, according to reports, she was not involved in policy-making. In September , Paul Starr, a senior White House health-policy advisor who participated in the task force discussions, wrote that although Hillary Clinton takes most of the blame for the failed legislation, Bill Clinton created the policy, not Hillary, a point that is often overlooked.
The previous September during his campaign, he had settled on the basic model for reform -- a plan for universal coverage based on consumer choice among competing private health plans, operating under a cap on total spending an approach known, in the shorthand of health policy, as 'managed competition within a budget'.
Though the media scarcely registered it at the time, Clinton had described this approach in a speech and referred to it in the presidential debates. Starr explained that members of the healthcare task force took their guidance from President Clinton, who was always in charge of the policy and decision-making, but "many reporters and the public thought that Bill Clinton had handed over the policy to Hillary and that she would report back to him, which was not the case.
Similarly, Atul Gawande, a leader of one of the task force's groups, said that Hillary Clinton's role in managing the task force was to handle the political aspect of getting the bill passed, not actual policy. Gawande said, "Politics was not a major part of our task. That was what the President and the First Lady and their political advisers were supposed to be dealing with.
We were there to pull together options for them. Despite not being in charge of creating the policy, Hillary Clinton took and still takes the blame for the failure of the bill. Some attribute this to the way she led the task force, but others dispute this point. According to The New York Times , the "secrecy" and manner in which Hillary Clinton and Magaziner lead the effort "planted the seeds of trouble for the President. Clinton and Mr. Magaziner met with many outside groups, but did not confide in them.
After one such meeting, in March , Dr. Quentin D. Young, chairman of Physicians for a National Health Program, which represents 6, doctors, said, 'It was a magnificent exercise in pseudo openness.
Starr disputed this account, writing that tensions between Clinton administration officials "led to persistent and damaging leaks and the appearance of disarray in the reform effort and to the countervailing efforts to maintain confidentiality and discipline that Hillary's critics have mistakenly attributed to her allegedly controlling and rigid personality.
It is also inaccurate to blame her for the failure of the bill. Her role in the effort to pass healthcare reform was to help explain the plan to members of Congress and the American people.
She was widely praised for her knowledge of the policy and her performance while testifying before Congress. Hillary Rodham Clinton took the health care reform plan she helped her husband develop to Capitol Hill Tuesday, where she charmed, cajoled and listened to the concerns of members of Congress.
The plan and the ACA are very different proposals. Obamacare is narrower in scope than the Clinton healthcare plan, which proposed universal health coverage. I was ostracized, and I had the feeling I was in the White House as a token — although whether as a token left-winger, token radical, token Hispanic, or token single-payer advocate, I cannot say.
But I definitely had the feeling I was a token something. It was at a later date, when some trade unions and Public Citizen mobilized to get more than , signatures in support of a single-payer system, that President Clinton instructed the task force to do something about single-payer. From then on the battle centered on including a sentence in the proposed law that would allow states to choose single-payer as an alternative if they so wished. In Canada, after all, single-payer started in one province Saskatchewan and later spread to the whole nation.
I have to admit that I made that proposal with considerable misgivings, since the insurance companies can also be extremely influential at the state level. For example, Governor Schaeffer a Democrat of Maryland had asked insurance companies to interview the various candidates for state insurance commissioner. Still, including this proposal was a step toward giving single-payer a chance in the U. Political System is incapable of forcing changes in such powerful constituencies as the insurance industry.
The splendid opening of the U. Empirical support in the U. The U. People in the U. Marx and Engels and Enthoven were not completely right: U. But, while not a dictatorship, U. I documented this in Medicine Under Capitalism, published in the s.
And things have become much worse during the Reagan—Bush Sr. The huge limitations of U. And this is why the Clinton proposal failed. He did not include in his plans any effort to mobilize people in support of the reform. Quite to the contrary. He allied himself with the major forces responsible for the sorry state of the U. The insurance companies ultimately opposed the final proposal because of its regulatory components, added by Starr and Zelman.
But, apart from these components, the insurance companies would have continued to manage the health care system. The failure had little to do with timing, with when and where President Clinton presented the proposal.
It had to do with how the Clintons related to the progressive constituencies, including labor and social movements. No universal, comprehensive coverage will ever be achieved in the U. The number of people who voted Republican in was no larger than in the previous non-presidential congressional election year. The big difference was in the Democratic vote. Abstention by working-class voters increased dramatically in and was the primary reason why Democrats lost their majority in Congress.
This is a point that Starr ignores. The Gingrich Revolution of was an outcome of voter abstention, particularly among the working class, who were fed up with President Clinton. One could see this in the White House task force. NAFTA empowered the right, and weakened and demoralized the left. Much of the remaining material duplicates records from the previous segments.
Contains files from 52 boxes. The files contain memoranda, correspondence, handwritten notes, reports, charts, graphs, bills, drafts, booklets, pamphlets, lists, press releases, schedules, statements, surveys, newspaper articles, and faxes.
Much of the material in this segment duplicates records from the previous segments. Graphs and charts abound on the effect reform of the health care system would have on the federal budget. Margherio, a Senior Policy Analyst on the Domestic Policy Council, has documents such as: memoranda, notes, summaries, and articles on individuals largely doctors deemed to be experts on the Health Security Act of qualified to travel across the country and speak to groups in glowing terms about the groundbreaking initiative put forward by President Clinton in his first year in the White House.
Contains files from 40 boxes. Identifier F. Publisher William J. Premium No's. HC — Magaziner Statements. HC — Excessive Government Regulation.
HC — Harold Varmus. HC — Legal Issue Overview. Abortion — Federal Employees. Abortion — Federal Financing. AIDS — Speech, etc. BC — Abortion Statements. HC — Abortion Coverage [Folder 1]. HC — Abortion Coverage [Folder 2].
HC — Abortion Politics. HC — Abortion Working Group. HC — Emergency Rooms. HC — Family Planning Studies. HC — Illegal Alien Policy.
HC — Medicaid Abortion Offer. HC — RU License. Health Care — Immunization Background. Immunization — Announcement. Immunization — Initiative. Immunization — National Vaccine Plan. HC — 1-Page Walkthru. HC — Crisis Op-Ed. HC — Tyson Op-Ed. HC — Undocumented 1-Pager. BC — Entitlement Speech. BC — Hopkins Talk Points. BC — Statuary Hall Intro. HRC — Brookings Speech.
HRC — Media Scripts. HRC — Minnesota Speech. HRC — Satellite Transcripts. HRC — Speech Coverage. HRC — Speech Texts. Health Care — Basic Language. Health Care — BC Interviews. Health Care — Lines and Language. HC — Arthur Fleming. HC — Adopt-a-Pundit. HC — Communications People.
HC — Inaccurate Press. HC — Interview Requests. HC — Media Market Maps. HC — Media Opportunities. HC — Network Specials. HC — Paid Media Strategy. HC — Press Coverage. HC Media — Radio People. HC Media — Television People. Health Care — Backgrounders. HC — Hill Republican Role. HC — Hill Strategy Memos. HC — Republican Conflict. HC Task Force- Secrecy. HC Task Force — Shalala. Health — Transition Memos. Health Care — Days Memos. Health Care — Hill Strategy. Health Care — Congal Politics.
Miscellaneous: [Claxton] [3.
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