Health Care Reform: Features Of The Clinton Health Care Reform Plan (Research Paper Sample)

Clinton’s Health Care Reform
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Introduction
Clinton health care reform plan was a reform package that had been proposed back in 1993 by the then administration of the US President Bill Clinton. The primary goal of the reform plan was the provision of universal healthcare for the entire American population and other legal residents. It involved the appointing of a task force charged with the responsibility to develop a very suitable reform proposal through which all the American citizens, as well as the other legal residents, would enjoy health care benefits (Connors and Gostin, 2010). The task force appointed was then divided into groups each addressing a particular health issue to ensure the comprehensiveness of the whole thing. The coverage of the reform had been considered to be universal providing comprehensive services and reach more people. The main campaigns of the Clinton health reform went hand in hand with his political campaigns. The key element of this change was to ensure an enforced habit by the employers to provide insurance coverage to their workers especially on the matters of health (Connors and Gostin, 2010). The proposal had earlier been welcomed warmly all over the United States but due to some issues later failed.
The features of the Clinton health care reform plan
The health care reform is known to have been explained by some features.  First of all, the proposal was to have a universal coverage of the health care for all Americans. The scope of the idea was the widespread reaching many individuals and enhancing regional uniting concerning the provision of medical services, especially among the citizens (Gelman and Ghitza, 2011). The aspect of the proposal being universal explained the reason as to why the plan was said to be comprehensive. The broad nature of the health care reform issue tried to account for the fact that it applied to any patient provided a legal citizen of America. Therefore, both the inpatients and the outpatients would benefit equally from the whole plan. However, being universal in coverage indicated that it applied to various cases of illnesses. This is the main reason the reform had first earned considerable interest in the eyes of the public who would be the primary beneficiaries of the whole plan.
Secondly, the whole thing was a basic benefits package. Health is one of the core requirements for the entire human fraternity. For economic development of any given region depends on the issue of the health of the inhabitants (Gelman and Ghitza, 2011). A healthy workforce is more productive compared to a weak one. Therefore, it would be difficult to have a workforce that is not health. Thus, the package was not only beneficial to the patients alone but also for matters regarding the economy of the US. The main reason it was referred to as an essential benefits package is the fact that health is a very crucial aspect of any human being and the fact that if the reform were to be passed, it would then be provided at standardized costs. The fact that, health is such an underlying commodity, resulted in Bill’s administration giving it priority over other reforms. Being such a basic and universal issue, health would be an appealing aspect of drawing the attention of the public and would help significantly in even the political campaigns.
The health care reform had some provisions under its coverage. These requirements included the medical insurance reform that ensured that the insurance sector implemented policies on matters relating medical services. Closely related to that was the provision for the Medicaid beneficiaries. This was to cater for the aged and less advantaged who would not be in good position to raise the adequate amount to cater for their health conditions (Nigam and Ocasio, 2012). The reform also provided for the regional alliances that would help in enhancing competition among health insurance plans. This would ensure that the regions forming the United States had a growing health sector. It is so because the contest between these insurance policies dealing with health would be structured to make it more beneficial and also ensure healthy competition between them.
Clinton Health Care reform also had several other provisions including a proposed drug abuse and mental health provisions. Under this, such coverage as intensive non-residential services, case management as well as assessment services was included. Therefore, limitations on certain coverage would be removed with the new proposal. Such limitations included on matters involving mental health and also what was referred to as psychotherapy. Therefore, this plan was an agent for the integration of such health services into a full range of services offered by local programs on health matters (Connors and Gostin, 2010). If the whole plan were to succeed it would see into it that issues on mandatory regional alliances were resolved and also employers’ contribution to the insurance premiums would be determined. Those are just but a few key features that this reform plan entailed. They explain what health sector regarding insurance would be like with the new scheme being enacted.
Reasons as why Clinton’s Health Plan was unsuccessful
Despite attracting much of the public interest upon its proposal, the Clintons health care reform did not succeed. The attempt to put the health reform into practice by passing it failed due to various reasons. The first one and which was considered the main reason was the inability of the then US president, Bill Clinton, to convince and work efficiently with even his party members to ensure that the plan was approved and passed (Gelman and Ghitza, 2011). Instead of forging alliances within his party, he failed to take chances for the fear of compromising the integrity of the reform plan. There were some political divisions within the party which led to the waning of the support to this plan. It became even harder to convince own party members to place their sign on the bill. This worsened the situation since the opposition to the reform was escalating from external to within the ruling party. This, therefore, predicted the possible reason for the failure of the whole thing.
Secondly, the reform plan may have failed due to the inappropriate strategies that the Clintons applied from the word go. For instance, making the plan in the Whitehouse was not the appropriate method of formulating an idea (Nigam and Ocasio, 2012). Such plans should be formulated outside the house, in fact behind closed doors, before being presented to the House for negotiations. This had several negative implications on the bill ranging from the fact that the time consumed in making the plan within the house should have been used for a constructive business of the house such as negotiating it. If that time had been employed for negotiations, the responsible parties of the bill would have been able to trace possible errors within the reform. This would have increased the chances of the bill passing since its efficiency would have improved from the recommendations that would ensue from negotiations (Jacobs and Skocpol, 2015).
The other reason as to why the entire health care reform failed is due to the politicizing of the whole issue. Members from the opposition parties would commit all their efforts to ensure the health bill did not pass because this would have earned the ruling party popularity and public attention. Therefore, they made various efforts to convince the citizens against this particular bill. For instance, the opposition persuaded and convinced the public that the health security act would result in more government programs. Since the public was opposed to increasing in the government programs, they would obviously withdraw their support (Gelman and Ghitza, 2011). The political climate in the region and the fact that it was during an era of campaigns were responsible for a great role in the failure of the Clinton health care reform proposal (Connors and Gostin, 2010). The political divisions prevented people evaluating the bill separately from the party proposing it.
Finally, placing his name on the bill and putting his signature on the same may have been a possible reason as to why it experienced a negative trend. The bill was referred to as the Clinton health plan which drew various reactions and criticisms from different parties surrounding the issue. For instance, there are those who were opposed to the Clintons but would have supported the bill. This would have been possible because it did not serve the Clintons but the public (Jacobs and Skocpol, 2015). However, if a certain individual were of the view that the bill was good but was opposed to Clinton’s administration, ...