Apparently President-elect Obama has in mind the failed attempts of the
Clinton administration to pass universal health care when he tries to tackle
the issue very soon. From the AP
WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama and his aides are
determined not to repeat the mistakes the Clinton administration
made 15 years ago in trying to revamp the nation's health care
system. That means applying some of the lessons learned — moving
fast, seizing momentum and not letting it go.
Tom Daschle, Obama's point man on the issue, discussed the early
strategy, although details of Obama's proposals won't be finalized
for a while. Already, however, the political and public relations
parts are coming into place.
The strategy begins with giving people the chance to highlight their
concerns and experiences. Daschle invited people around the nation
to hold what amounts to house parties from Dec. 15-31. Obama's
transition team will gather the information from those meetings and
post the material on its Web site, http://change.gov.
I think one difference between the 1990s and now is there is more public support
for universal health care. I've found conflicting polls, some say Americans favor
universal health care and others not so much. So I'm not exactly sure where the
majority of people stand. But my guess is that we've an increase support for health
care reform since the 1990s. Look at this video of people protesting Hillary Clinton
during a rally on health care in Seattle:
Can you imagine this happening today? Actually, I live in Texas and went to
both a Hillary and Obama rally and heard many people in line saying that want
universal health care passed. No one booed when the Democratic candidates
talked about universal health care. Also, Hillary and Obama went all over the
country during the Democratic primary (north, south, west, and east) and universal
health care was the major topic during the Democratic debates. Did anyone hear
of a protest about universal health care? I didn't. So my guess is the Democrats
are probably going to pass universal health care and we are going to have little
(probably some) public outcry about it. What do you think? Will Congress pass
universal health care and will there be public support or dissent?
