The Politics of Health Care

Abstract

For all the debate and division over the deficit and free trade, the Clinton proposal which would have most immediately affected the US economy and reached into numerous areas of American society was the Health Security Act. The HSA proposed a revamp of a sector which devoured over one-eighth of the country’s GDP. The battle to accomplish this opened with a flourish in September 1993 with Clinton’s address to Congress in which he explained the rationale for taking on such a big task (Johnson and Broder, 1997, pp.3–31). This display of presidential bravado, however, was not a prelude to what followed. Almost exactly a year later a last ditch attempt to salvage something from the legislative wreckage surrounding the issue collapsed. Two months on from this, the GOP captured Congress laying to rest the prospect of any near-term fundamental, progressive overhaul of the American health care system. Indeed not only had Clinton failed but the manner of this failure had undoubtedly contributed to the Republican success. This painful episode stands out as a, possibly the, defining event of the Clinton years. Certainly nothing on this scale was even thought about, let alone attempted, subsequently.