Specter's Party Change and Health Care Reform

Some have concluded that Arlen Specter’s party change means smooth sailing for the Obama administration’s proposed health care reform.  I’m more skeptical – Specter got only a one page mention in The System, Johnson and Broder’s excellent book cataloging the failure of the Clinton Health plan in 1993-4. There were a half dozen Republican Senators eager to work with the Democrats to craft a bipartisan bill, and Specter was not among them.

 

Images matter, and there were two images influential in sinking the proposed Clinton health care plan.  One is the “Harry and Louise” television commercial made by the health insurance industry, where two “ordinary Americans” worried that the new health plan would take away their choices and put health care under government control.

 

The second image that helped sink “Hillarycare”  was a complicated, Rube Goldberg-esque diagram of the interactions among dozens of government agencies required to administer the Clinton health plan, as imagined in the 1342 page proposed legislation.  (Ironically, I can't find the image of this to attach to this post.  Please let me know if you find it and I will revise this post)

 

This diagram was attributed to Arlen Specter.

(Ironically, I can't find the image of this diagram to attach to this post.  Please let me know if you find it and I will revise this post)