 Hillary Clinton played a significant role in designing the Clinton healthcare plan. It was the first time a president's wife had contributed to significant legislation. |
To address what he saw as a broken system, President Clinton appointed a task force headed by his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The task force produced the Health Security Act, which would require all Americans to have insurance and would force employers to insure their employees. The Health Security Act also included measures to ensure that healthcare costs were tightly controlled by the government: Insurance companies would have to cover everyone, and they would have to limit their charges to specific amounts.
The bill did not pass Congress for several reasons. First, Bill and Hillary Clinton designed the bill behind closed doors, without the input of Senate and House members, which angered the Democratic majority in Congress. Republicans and insurance companies were entirely against the plan too, and they spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads to convince the public that it was a bad idea. For a better explanation of the challenges facing the Clintons' healthcare bill, watch the following video:
The key to any successful campaign is communicating your ideas clearly. Who would vote for someone whose ideas are fuzzy? The Clintons did a poor job communicating their healthcare ideas to the American people. And people opposed to the Clintons' plan were much more successful at communicating its weaknesses.
Republicans generally oppose new regulations on business, and the Republicans in Congress during Clinton's term believed that the Clinton plan imposed too much government control on the insurance industry. If you injured yourself or became ill and didn't have insurance, they believed that was your responsibility, not the government's.
Beyond those philosophical debates, health insurance companies would lose a great deal of money if the Clinton plan were to pass, and they spent millions on TV ads designed to sway public opinion against the new legislation.
The most effective ads featured "Harry and Louise," a sad couple from the future sitting around the kitchen table and despairing about their options under the Clinton healthcare system. The woman says, "having choices we don't like is no choice at all."
The ads were extremely effective: few Americans understood the plan, but the ads convinced them that it was a bad idea.
Democrats, on the other hand, weren't united behind the President. Some didn't think the bill went far enough: they wanted complete government control of health insurance. Others were afraid that they would be voted out of office for supporting Clinton's controversial plan.
In the end, the Clinton plan died in Congress before it even came to a vote, and Democrats lost their majority in Congress anyway in 1994. It wasn't a good start to Clinton's presidency.
Bill Clinton's ideas for healthcare reform did lead to some changes. Early in 1993, right after his presidency began, he signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, which made all employers give their employees unpaid leave from work to attend to family matters like pregnancy and major illnesses.
Use the following flashcards to review important facts about President Clinton's healthcare initiatives:
Who designed the Health Security Act?
President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, and a special task force.
What was the Family and Medical Leave Act?
a 1993 bill that granted workers the right to take unpaid leave from work for some family issues.
What happened to the Health Security Act?
It died in Congress due to a lack of support.
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