How is this movement for universal health care different from the push for universal health care that was tried and failed in the early 90s?
In the ’90s the health care reform package known as the “Clinton Plan” was defeated. It failed because the debates about it were held without adequate input from the public and tried to incorporate the giant health insurance companies into a system of universal coverage. What resulted was a bizarrely complex proposal that was extremely vulnerable to attack. And attacked it was – by the same health insurance companies that the plan tried to accommodate. The insurance companies took advantage of the fact that the vast majority of the American people found the plan hard to understand. They waged a multi-million dollar media campaign to scare the American people away from the Clinton Plan, and it worked. The structure that came into being after rejection of the plan depended heavily on market forces and the spread of HMOs to hold down prices and provide broad coverage. That “managed care” approach did not work. Costs are rising rapidly and broad coverage was never attained. The growth of a
