Boomerang, by Theda Skocpol

Skocpol considers the health care issue a pivotal one in Clinton's first term. The president launched his campaign for health care reform with a nationally televised speech on September 23, 1993. Experts agreed that some kind of health care reform package would eventually be passed. A year and a few days later, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell officially recognized that the program was dead. Skocpol does not think the administration planners were "awesomely stupid" or excessively "liberal" (p. 18).

Previous attempts to create some kind of national health care have occurred several times in this century. Medicaid and Medicare passed in 1965. During the 1980s, many employers, to stay competitive, lowered or dropped their coverage. Health care was 14 percent of GNP in 1993 and had been increasing its share by 1 percent every 35 months since 1980 (pp. 21-23).

In 1991, Harris Wofford's dramatic victory in Pennsylvania's special Senatorial election brought health care to the forefront as an issue. Many reform plans were circulated in the winter of 1992, all embodying one of three basic approaches. First, market-oriented reforms aimed at incremental modifications of t

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greement (NAFTA) and the Budget and had very little time to push health care. Second, the Clinton administration did very little about explaining the workings of the bill. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) formed the National Health Care Campaign (NHCC) to explain Health Security to key groups, but they were underfunded and accomplished little. One large group, the American Association of Retired People, favored Clinton's plan but would not endorse the bill outright because of an incident during the Catastrophic Insurance Program campaign a few years before. Other consumer groups withheld endorsement, hoping to get concessions. The Democratic Congress might have used the time to put together an initial bill. They could have lost the vote on that one and used what they learned to come back with a better one. But uncertainty about the attitude of essential committees and indecision about programs meant that Congress did nothing. In Skocpol's view, although policy planning was well handled, "the coalition politics of the reform effort were in many ways bungled" (p. 107). Clinton used too many generalities in his kick-off speech. Trust in government at that time was low, with more than half of Americans considering th
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Health Security, Reagan's Revenge, President Bush, Clinton Administration, Hillary Clinton, Congress Skocpol's, Pharmaceuticals Jersey, Harris Wofford's, Council HLC, Task Force, health care, health security, health insurance, health security campaign, security campaign, private health insurance, security effort, care reform, health alliances, insurance association, hillary clinton, health care plan, national health care, clinton administration, health insurance association,
Approximate Word count = 1809
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)