First, there was a clear popular plurality for a dramatic health care change. The people wanted Clinton and they wanted Clinton to get them guaranteed decent health care. He worked "like a dog" to make sure that they had little to no say in what that plan was, and he "worked like a dog" to assure them that they were to trust him because "no American would be without quality, affordable health care".
Second, when he created a plan (unnecessarily convoluted and in an unnecessarily undemocratic fashion) he met easily foreseen resistance from many powerful vested interests. He needed the people and congress to beat them back and leaving them out of the process (and making the simple core ideas unnecessarily complicated) he lost the fight.
Third, and this is the part that nearly always gets left out by the revisionists, Pete Stark had a national health plan on the table that enough Republicans supported that met all of President Clinton's goals and did it with better cost control. The problem, of course, that the President's (and his wife's and his health team's) egos were more important than the lives and comfort of millions of Americans--hence, and truly sadly, out of the question.
But it does not end there, the people still wanted major changes in health care but he gave them nothing from there on. He was still President after all--perfecting his excuses and revisionism instead of providing for real people.
The usual excuse for not bringing reforms later was that "things got better" (not recognizing the reality that the problem had just changed for health care policy is excessively complicated).
So, we get a lot of bluster but if any Democrat *really* cared about the health security of the people AND thought carefully about the complex six-sided issue instead of trying to make it look like something is happening with minor band-aids--they would have no trouble beating Bush but we know that some things are more important than people.
Jim
Brad DeLong wrote:
>
> Odd how things that are blocked by Republicans and right-wing Democrats
> become evidence of Clinton's duplicity. He worked like a dog (albeit in
> a stupid fashion) for his stimulus package and his health-care program.
>
> There's lots to dislike about the guy. But not these.
"You're gonna need a lot of puff and bluff if you want to inflate your big banana"
-Frank Sidebottom