Why Hillarycare failed …and what we need to learn from that failure

By MATTHEW HOLT In July 2005 George W Bush had relatively recently won a Presidential election in which the Republican won the popular vote (something that will likely never happen again) & the Republicans controlled all three branches of Government. Those of us liberals at the bottom of a dark trench were wondering if and how we’d get to health reform. So in another reprint to celebrate THCB’s 15th birthday, here was my then take on what went wrong in 1994 and what would happen next–Matthew Holt      There are lots of versions about what killed the 1993-4 health care reform effort.  Hillary Clinton has now decided that the problem was the lack of incrementalism in her plan.  Last week the New York Times said that since becoming a Senator: “She has deliberately avoided the major mistake she made as first lady, namely trying to sell an ambitious plan to a public with no appetite for radical change. <SNIP>. She summed up her approach in the first floor speech she delivered in the Senate about four years ago, when she unveiled a series of relatively modest health care initiatives. “I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done,” she said, referring to the 1994 defeat of her health care plan.” On the other hand, some people are still claiming victory for the plan’s defeat even if they were at most mod...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Matthew Holt HillaryCare Source Type: blogs