"Bill Clinton Sees Hope for Health Care Changes, This Time"

[Clio the Leo]

Bill Clinton Sees Hope for Health Care Changes, This Time
By PETER BAKER
Published: June 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — As President Obama’s drive to remake the nation’s health care system shifts into high gear this summer, one thing he wants to do is avoid making the mistakes President Bill Clinton made. And one person who thinks he will be able is Mr. Clinton himself.

As he watches the new Democratic president take on the issue that stymied him 16 years ago, Mr. Clinton has concluded that Mr. Obama has a better chance than he did, both because of the way the new proposals are structured and because of a national mood that is more supportive of major action.

“He’s got a better Congress, a more receptive climate,” Mr. Clinton said in a recent interview. “He also has, frankly, a better — at least more politically saleable — set of proposals.”

Mr. Clinton has had plenty of time, of course, to think about what went wrong when he and Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to enact universal coverage in 1993. With a task force that operated largely in secret, the first lady drew up a detailed and complicated plan that met with fierce opposition by the health care industry and Republicans before it ultimately sank of its own weight in a Democratic Congress.

Mr. Obama is approaching the issue in a different way. Rather than developing his own detailed proposal, he is setting out broad principles and letting lawmakers draft the specifics of a plan that they believe can pass. And to achieve universal coverage, instead of Mr. Clinton’s plan to require employers to provide it, Mr. Obama envisions creating a government-run health plan that would compete with private insurers.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/us/politics/12baker.html