President Bill Clinton. “Address on Health Care Reform” (September 22, 1993)
So tonight I want to talk to you about the principles that I believe must embody our efforts to reform America’s health care system: security, simplicity, savings, choice, quality, and responsibility.
When I launched our Nation on this journey to reform the health care system I knew we needed a talented navigator, someone with a rigorous mind, a steady compass, a caring heart. Luckily for me and for our Nation, I didn’t have to look very far.
Over the last 8 months, Hillary and those working with her have talked to literally thousands of Americans to understand the strengths and the frailties of this system of ours.
President Clinton had campaigned on 1992 on pushing through a comprehensive health care reform package and placed his wife, First Lady Hillary Clinton, at the head of the task force that was supposed to produce the legislation. It was a political and legislative disaster. The final package was complicated and prompted criticism that it was created in secret without public input.
Clinton’s September 1993 speech on national health care made the case for for reform, But Republican opponents lashed out at the plan and a series of sophisticated, negative TV ads featuring “Harry and Louise,” and created by a consortium of health care companies, effectively killed public support for the program and the legislation was doomed.
William Jefferson Clinton was born on August 19, 1946 in Hope, Arkansas.
Read more about Clinton’s presidency in Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents and Don’t Know Much About® History
Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents (Hyperion and Random House Audio)
Don’t Know Much About History (Revised, Expanded and Updated Edition-Harper Collins and Random House Audio )
