The Health
Security Act was President Bill Clinton's initiative for national healthcare reform. A major
thrust of his 1992 presidential campaign, it was a cornerstone of his domestic policy. Its
defeat in 1994 was a major setback for his administration.
The contents of
the law itself were the result of a national task force publicly led by the First Lady, Hillary
Clinton. It was introduced in Congress in late 1993. As one political scientist has written, the
causes of the collapse of the Clinton "lurked in the electoral upheavals of November
1994." The massive Republican victories in these midterm elections reflected a general
sense that the federal government under Clinton had become bloated and ineffective, pursuing
expensive initiatives that led to gridlock in Washington.
This critique
emerged in the debates over the plan. Conservative Republicans in the House of
Representativesmost famously Georgia congressman Newt Gingrichsuccessfully portrayed Clinton's
plan as ineffective, complicated, and above all, a massive overreach from the federal
government. It mobilized right-wing voters, including conservative media outlets that gave voice
to a libertarian-leaning faction in the Republican Party. They capitalized on the First Lady's
unpopularity by characterizing the plan as "Hillarycare." Less remembered is the
fairly tepid support the plan received from Democrats in Congress, many of whom sought to alter
the bill before giving it their support. Some even introduced modified or even rival plans that
muddied the waters in the congressional debates.
With low popular support,
and massive Republican opposition, the bill failed in the Senate, which declined to even bring
it to a vote, in the early fall of 1994. Ominously for the Democrats, it created anin which
Republicans, touting a "Contract with America," could win both houses of Congress in
the November elections.
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