Lessons from the Recent Past: Rumors of Obamacare’s Death are Premature

Robert Moffit / February 02, 2010

Media reports that Obamacare is near death are premature. And, if the past is any guide, flat out wrong. It is possible for the Administration to lose politically in pushing its federal takeover of health care, and yet win the policy battle.

Consider the fate of Clintoncare bill of the 1990s. This similarity is not at all a good thing for conservatives. In fact, President Clinton, on an incremental basis, quietly and effectively beat the tar out of hapless congressional Republicans on health care. Unnoticed by a public hostile to the Clinton bill, and possibly even many members of Congress who should have known better, several provisions of President Bill Clinton’s health care reform package were passed by a Republican Congress. It was proof that on health policy Congressional Republicans often did not know what they were doing in the years following the collapse of the Clinton health bill on the floor of the Senate in the fall of 1994. Likewise, Obamacare policies could still become law through this same incremental approach, buried in different bills or legislative vehicles.

A Heritage Foundation paper(pdf) written by Carrie Gavora, a very perceptive analyst, in 1998 outlined the several ways in which Congress later moved the country closer to President Clinton’s vision of greater federal control over health care: (more…)