Clinton health care plan of 1993

[9][10] This unusual decision by the president to put his wife in charge of the project has been attributed to several factors, such as his desire to emphasize his personal commitment to the enterprise.

[10] After President Clinton announced the formation of the Task Force, media began to criticize the secrecy surrounding its deliberations, eventually leading to a public disclosure of the names of those involved.

And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government.Conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry proceeded to campaign against the plan, criticizing it as being overly bureaucratic and restrictive of patient choice.

The Heritage Foundation argued that "the Clinton Administration is imposing a top-down, command-and-control system of global budgets and premium caps, a superintending National Health Board and a vast system of government sponsored regional alliances, along with a panoply of advisory boards, panels, and councils, interlaced with the expanded operations of the agencies of Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor, issuing innumerable rules, regulations, guidelines, and standards.

[18][19] Time, CBS News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor ran stories questioning whether there really was a health care crisis.

[20] Op-eds were written against it, including one in The Washington Post by conservative[21] University of Virginia Professor Martha Derthick that said, In many years of studying American social policy, I have never read an official document that seemed so suffused with coercion and political naivete... with its drastic prescriptions for controlling the conduct of state governments, employers, drug manufacturers, doctors, hospitals and you and me.

The Clinton White House argued that the Recommendation Clause in Article II of the US Constitution would make it unconstitutional to apply the procedural requirements of FACA to her participation in the meetings of the Task Force.

Circuit ruled narrowly that the First Lady could be deemed a government official (and not a mere private citizen) for the purpose of not having to comply with the procedural requirements of FACA.

[25][26] Also in February 1993, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, along with several other groups, filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and Donna Shalala over closed-door meetings related to the health care plan.

[28] In August 1994, Democratic Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell introduced a compromise proposal that would have delayed requirements of employers until 2002 and exempted small businesses.

The defeat was embarrassing for the administration, emboldened Republicans, and contributed to the notion that Hillary Clinton was a "big-government liberal" as decried by conservative opponents.

[30] The 1994 mid-term election became, in the opinion of one media observer, a "referendum on big government – Hillary Clinton had launched a massive health-care reform plan that wound up strangled by its own red tape".

[31] In that 1994 election, the Republican revolution, led by Newt Gingrich, gave the GOP control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time since the 83rd Congress of 1953–1954, ending prospects for a Clinton-sponsored health care overhaul.

[33][34] In 2005, referring to her previous efforts at health care reform, she said, "I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done.