Clinton Health Care Plan Prosition Essay Example

Clinton Health Care Plan Prosition Essay Example Clinton Health Care Plan Prosition Paper Clinton Health Care Plan Prosition Paper The Clinton health care plan, in its proposition, held more potential than it did in application. The plan, based upon the principles of universal coverage, consumer choice, and a backup system of cost containment,1 drew in members from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, as well as hard-to-get special interest groups. However, the Clinton plan was doomed for failure, which Paul Starr attributed it to too much, too fast. Ultimately, the demise of the plan was based on two major issues in politics: time and labels. The Clinton health care plan began in the minds of several key democrats to address the near-crisis level of the system of the early 90s. According to an article in a September 1993 issue of The Tech, the then-current health care system left nearly 35 million Americans uninsured, and an almost equal amount with inadequate coverage. Skyrocketing drug costs, the beginnings of the HMO organization scandals, and job loss were beginning to twist together, and the Clinton administration capitalized on the winds of change. Clinton began his quest for a functioning health care system with gusto; instead of declaring a basic coverage to reach those most desperately in need, or a system to address those rapidly losing their coverage with unemployment, he proclaimed an immediate future for universal coverage. President Clinton based the roots for his plan on the ideological premise that health care is a right, not a privilege. 2 His position paper stressed the importance of reaching those uncovered and most in need, particularly children. The plan called for Early Periodic Screenings, Diagnosis, and Treatment increases by more than 2,000 percent. Symptomatic of left-wing, big government social policy, the President had executed the same far-reaching plan in his home state of Arkansas, where, as governor, he had cut the infant mortality rate by 43 percent. 3 Regardless of how politicized a policy that targets all children, like this one, is, Clinton, and initially members from both political parties, saw it as the preliminary intervention system it had the possibility to be. Regardless of the future shape of health care, Clinton recognized, targeting children and encouraging good health early on would ultimately save the system money. The social foundation of America, regardless of political trends, provides for those in need; by insuring early childhood health, covering costly treatments for developed diseases later in life would be significantly decreased. While the plan experienced immediate support, the groups involved would soon crow in disagreement with the administration, and the plan would meet certain doom within a year. An already politically splintered political community in Washington stalled the early vitality of the bill, which A. M. Rosenthal of the New York Times had pronounced a success. 4 However, what brought its downfall was not political disagreement, but timing and labels. Paul Starr attributed the fall of the program to â€Å"too much, too fast,† made worse by the addendum of names and stereotypes in the political popularity contest of D. C. Leaders from all sides – left, right, lobby, business – came to the issue of health care reform with resolve. The failings of the system were self-evident, exposed, and costly. While Clinton and the left-wing pushed for immediate universal coverage, Republicans wanted to fix the system with a â€Å"mandate,† requiring all Americans to buy into health insurance. 5 The American Medical Association and the Health Insurance Association of America, â€Å"the two great, historic bastions of opposition to compulsory health insurance,†6 sided with the politicians for an employer mandate and universal coverage. Other groups on the left encouraged single-payer programs while others on right encouraged medical savings accounts and managed competition. The system was ripe for change, and everyone was eager to contribute; the Clinton administration had the possibility to create a solid, successful system, but instead, fell prey to the greatest enemy of government – politics. Said Joe Klein: â€Å"The Republicans enjoyed a double triumph, killing reform and then watching the jurors find the president guilty. It was the political equivalent of a perfect crime. †7 The political calendar, Starr wrote, was the first thing that changed the sails of health care reform. Budget crisis, job loss, and the economy became the main issues of 1993. In a time of such fiscal crisis, the selling power of expensive health care decreased, and the immediacy required for political action began to disappear. Starr relays the importance of the moment in making changes in government by discussing the worries of the public by the start of the 103rd Congress: â€Å"With unemployment down, Americans were worrying less about their jobs and health coverage and more about crime. As health care inflation eased primarily because inflation was generally under control, businesses worries less about health care cost containment and more about the political implications of expansion of government authority. † For the Clinton administration, switching priorities – as they needed to do – also brought a switch away from health care reform. Although Starr never addresses the issue directly, the glaring flaw with the transition of his priorities from health care to the economy was that the failings of the health care system were only felt when the economy was at its worst. When his administration solved the most widespread, publicly felt financial problems, the ever-present need for health care reform was less visible. Soon, parties previously in support of change reversed their agreement with the administration, positing alternative, politicized plans or full confrontation. The Chamber of Commerce pulled its endorsement of the mandate, the AMA cut out support for private doctors, Dole abandoned the individual mandate, and within weeks was at the side of Packwood citing â€Å"too much government. †8 Eventually, all of the support in timing was lost with the yearly remind of the precariousness of job stability in Washington: midterm elections. â€Å"It was not simply southerners like Sam Nunn who opposed the mandate, Bob Kerrey, Dianne Feinstein, and Joseph Lieberman – all running for re-election – would not vote for the mandate in any form. † 9 Clinton lost his own side to elections in the polarized community of the mid-90s. Equally at fault for the failure of the Clinton health care reform were the labels associated with it. Starr wrote, â€Å"By putting his personal signature on health care reform, moreover, Clinton gave the Republicans an incentive to defeat it and humiliate him rather than compromise. † With the return of a strong economy, Republicans sought to disassociate themselves with the political left, particularly the administration, before the next presidential election. The republicans began to wash the health care reform movement with the social policies the administration were putting in place elsewhere. â€Å"There is no logical connection between views on health care reform and, say, gays in the military†¦ but the identification of the Clintons with there form of health care became so strong that sentiments crossed over. † The Republicans, fearing public association with the anti-conservative cultural beliefs of the President, preempted any correlation by an early exit, even at the cost of health care reform. The active role of the First Lady in the administration was further cause for right-wing alarm. Her visible participation in government was not paralleled by classic, genteel expectations of a â€Å"lady,† but instead, Hillary Clinton embodied the strong, declarative, opinionated future leader she would become for the State of New York. Hillary Clinton took a strong step for women by asserting herself in the White House, but in blurred lines, she was quickly associated with the un-ladylike characteristics with which American struggles. She stood her ground firmly as a strong, independent women with so-called bleeding-heart liberal ideologies; while any woman would have been difficult to accept so powerfully at the President’s side, she flaunted the traits that the whole country was fumbling to accept throughout all-walks of society. As Starr said, the First Lady’s role in the health care reform plan development further muddied its previously-clear viability. When politics in D. C. can more accurately resemble a high school social network than a group of educated, concerned adults, Starr realistically attributed the lack of success to the labels attached to the reform. â€Å"The real problem was that time was spent developing a plan that should have been spent negotiating it. † 10 The names associated with the bill were made worse by the details of the plan itself. The program would cover abortions, for instance, something definitively unacceptable to the Republicans. Home based, long-term care for the elderly and prescription drug benefits for Medicare were equally disputed. The taxes necessary to achieve real universe coverage were unacceptable in the then Republican congress, and the scandals of Whitewater prevented even moderate leaders from climbing aboard with the President for the health care plan. Ultimately, the plan carried the Clinton name and, on that alone, presented huge political risk to all those who might associate with it. Furthermore, while the core of plan remained publicly popular, the details became topics of heated dispute. â€Å"Because we failed to edit the plan down to its essentials and find familiar ways to convey it,† Starr lamented, â€Å"many people couldn’t understand what we were proposing. † The plan was lost in politics, and the Democrats, in the midst of a high-strung Washington popularity contest, were unable to represent the plan in any acceptable form. The failure of the Clinton healthcare plan represents the ultimate problem with government: politics get too much in the way. The seeds for any successful health care plan were spread through all walks of the political world – addressing the rising costs of health care, insurance, and prescriptions, the large amounts of underinsured, the disastrous possibilities of an increasing uninsured population – but they were lost without a mandate from the public to achieve them. While the left floundered in its own political scandals, the right pushed for conservative ideology and corporate support, and the middle sought reelection, the American public forgot about health care. The only possibility for solving the health care reform problems in America is a grass-roots movement with broad-based support and immediate action from the leaders in government; whether or not this is a possibility is yet to be determined. Bibliography : 1. Starr, Paul. â€Å"What Happened to Health Care Reform? † The American Prospect. No. 20. (Winter 1995. ) p. 20-31. Available online: www. princeton. edu/~starr/20starr. html 2. Stevenson, Daniel. â€Å"Health Care Reform Requires Passage of a Clinton Plan. † The Tech. Vol. 113, No. 44. (September 1993. ) Available online: www-tech. mit. edu/V113/N44/Stevenson. 44o. txt. html