There are lessons to be learnt from the health battles in 1993. Key lessons for all. The 1993 bill faced heavy opposition from Republicans and the health insurance industry. Democratic Senators instead of uniting behind the President's original proposal, offered a number of competing plans of their own.
Much of that was avoided this time but it did not stop certain Bush Dog Senators using blackmail to work against key proposals.
The Clinton plan would have required each US citizen to enrol in a qualified health plan. It would have legislated for minimum coverage standards and maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses for each plan. 16 years later it has become "mandated insurance".
It proposed the establishment of corporate "regional alliances" of health providers to be subject to a fee-for-service schedule. 16 years later, the regional exchanges of "Hillary care" are back on an optional basis for States in the Senate version, in the House version there is the Insurance Exchange.
In 1993 Bill Clinton told Congress,
Millions of Americans are just a pink slip away from losing their health insurance, and one serious illness away from losing all their savings. Millions more are locked into the jobs they have now just because they or someone in their family has once been sick and they have what is called the preexisting condition. And on any given day, over 37 million Americans—most of them working people and their little children—have no health insurance at all. And in spite of all this, our medical bills are growing at over twice the rate of inflation, and the United States spends over a third more of its income on health care than any other nation on Earth.
Sixteen years later nothing of that has changed, except for 10 million more being added to the ranks of the uninsured.
Congress fought the Presidential proposals tooth and nail. The then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee voiced strong opposition to President Clinton's proposal to expand health care coverage to all Americans. Senator Moynihan famously said that "there is no health care crisis in this country."
Sixteen years later, the much weakened proposals which are in part a result of the work of the Senate Finance Committee betray a similar attitude.
The compromises broke the bill. There was not a consensus on a single proposal never mind enough votes to reach cloture in the Senate and the House had no agreement between the various factions within the Democratic caucus.Blue Dogs wanted nothing and sided with the Republicans. Those on the left wanted single payer or nothing and another group opposed the mandates.
Sixteen years later the same battles raged.
Democrats kept proposing bills that cut away the numbers to be covered. Roland Thomas kept drafting compromises, cutting numbers covered from 100% to 95% and Reaching as low as 90% as the battle drew to a close. There wasn't unity to get a single proposal through.
The Republicans remained a solid voting block of no. They had been instructed to vote no on any compromise by Kristol of the "Project for the Republican Future" think tank. Ginrich became the Congressional tool. They were encouraged to believe that health care, was the final nail in the GOP coffin because it would have been the last building bloc of real social security reform.
Sixteen years later the think tanks are replaced by talk radio. That paranoia has got worse now.
Not finding any majority, Senate Leader Mitchell killed the bill in September 1994.
The Republicans victorious, having stopped a stimulus programme and now health care were jubilant. The Democratic Party, despite having a Democratic House, Senate and President were despondent.
The Senate that November went from a 56-44 Democratic majority to a 53-47 Republican majority. The House went from having a 256-178 majority to a 230-204 majority.
The Republicans then spent the rest of the time going after Democratic members one by one until they got to the President.
Sixteen years later, what would the GOP do now? Go away quietly as a result of a bill (that is far from perfect) being killed, congratulating the President and Congress for the effort, or use that failure to once again remove any chance of health care for another 16 years?
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