Reply #7: It was all over but the shoutin' by the time Harry & Louise showed up

[BeyondGeography]

the Clinton Health Plan was fatally flawed from the start. It was a typical too-triangulated by half piece of nonsense that had few defenders at the the end of the day. It combined employer mandates (which pissed off employers and energized health care professionals) with cost controls (which pissed off health care professionals and appealed to employers).

Everyone with a stake in the outcome found something to utterly hate about the plan, not least because of the way the process was managed by the Clinton Administration. This comes from, "Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in 20th Century America," by Colin Gordon:

"The Clinton Health Plan collapsed not because it threatened private health but because it tried so desperately to make them all happy. The task was to 'keep the health industry divided, sector to sector and within sectors,' the task force's interest group liaison put it. 'We need to both keep the different major sectors--doctors, hospitals, insurers, pharmaceuticals--shooting at each other, and we need to make sure that some players in each sector are with us.' The results were disastrous. Winning the cooperation of some only magnified the opposition of others, and cost the administration support among its natural allies. Reform and the political compromises necessary to make reform possible seemed increasingly incompatible..."