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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (206566)	10/19/2006 7:51:25 PM
From: Ichy Smith	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 281500

Well Chris I took a look, and i can see why you would rather call me names than admit that the Demoncrats defeated the proposal. They had a majority, but couldn't agree on the plan Clinton proposed, and the idea was defeated. And then the Demoncrats were crushed in the next election. (1994)Had the Demoncrats not axed the presidents plan they could have passed it. no wonder you Demoncrats don't want to rationally discuss it. You had a majority, you had the chance and you blew it. Admit it the Democratic party Blew its chance the bring the US Medicare because it failed to vote in favor of it's own legislation. That is just too funny. No wonder the voters whacked you like a bunch of skunks. gsb.stanford.edu In 1992, the Clinton administration saw itself as a catalyst for change. It put issues like health care and welfare reform on the agenda. Although some legislation previously vetoed by Republican presidents was signed by Clinton, little was accomplished by what was touted as gridlock-breaking unified government. Clinton had swept into office alongside a majority of Democratic congressional members, but the Democrats did not necessarily vote together. Senate filibusters and the individual preferences of members of Congress guaranteed that the Democratic Party did not act as a unified force and Clinton was unable to effect change. Once the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994 -- for the first time in 40 years -- congressional preferences shifted farther right and made Congress, not the president, the agenda setter. Clinton's major weapon in the budget policy disputes became the presidential veto, which he used to shift policy back toward the left, away from the Republican Congress's preferences. Without the ability to garner the votes of two-thirds of the senators to override a veto, the Republicans found their Contract with America reduced to an unfulfilled wish list. Speaker Newt Gingrich's House was able to pass only bills that were essentially unfunded decrees. "It's a watered-down version of what might have been," says Brady. en.wikipedia.org Conservatives, libertarians, and the insurance industry, however, staged an effective and well-organized campaign opposing Clinton's "Health Security" plan and criticized it as being overly bureaucratic and restrictive of patient choice. The effort included extensive advertising criticizing the plan, including the famous Harry and Louise ad, which depicted a middle-class couple despairing over the plan's bureaucratic nature. (The advertisements might have been particularly effective because they characterized Clinton's plan as being against middle class values.) Meanwhile, Democrats, instead of uniting behind the President's original proposal, offered a number of competing plans of their own. Some criticized the plan from the left, preferring a Canadian-style single payer system. On September 26, 1994, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell announced that the plan was dead, at least for that session of Congress. The defeat weakened Clinton politically, and contributed to widespread public frustration with perceived Congressional gridlock. In the 1994 election, the Republican revolution gave the GOP control of both houses of Congress, ending prospects for a Clinton-sponsored health care overhaul. Comprehensive reform aimed at creating universal health care in the United States has not been seriously considered by Congress since.