J. Bradford DeLong: August 27, 2009
Memories of Health Care Reform Efforts Past J. Bradford DeLong University of California at Berkeley and NBER delong@econ.berkeley.edu August 27, 2009
A little ancient history: After President Clinton’s 43% plurality victory in the presidential election of 1992, I worked in the U.S. Treasury Department headed by former Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen as a spear-carrier. The plurality view in the Treasury Department throughout 1993 and up through the middle of 1994 about the health care reform situation had six pieces: (1) There were not, on their own, even 50 votes for any health care reform bill sponsored by President Clinton in the U.S. Senate. It did not matter what the bill said or how good policy it was, key Democratic senators would place a higher priority on their objective of teaching the hick from Arkansas that he was not their boss and vote against it. Thus even though the Democrats had a majority in the Senate, they could not pass Clinton’s bill—whatever it was—even if the Republican did not filibuster it. (2) There were, on the other hand, 80 votes in the Senate for any health care reform bill that would be blessed by Republican Senate leader Robert Dole.
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J. Bradford DeLong: August 27, 2009
(3) Dole was not a cruel or a cynical or an amoral man, but really did want to make the country a better place. (4) Dole—with his own long-standing health problems stemming from his World War II injuries—was keenly aware of the importance of health care. (5) Dole was smart: aware of how the American health care financing system was broken and how much public good would be done by fixing it. (6) Dole and Bentsen had worked well together throughout the mid and late 1980s and into the 1990s trying to repair the damage done to America’s budget by the supply-siders. Dole, remember, was the guy who told this joke: “The bad news is that a bus went over the cliff. The good news is that it was loaded with supply-side economists.” Therefore, we in the Treasury thought, sometime—probably in the second quarter of 1994—Bentsen’s personal policy staff would start feeling out Dole’s personal policy staff, and then President Clinton would invite Senator Dole to a private Oval Office meeting, and then they would emerge, and Clinton would tell the cameras that the health care legislative process had gotten bogged down and that he was seeking Senator Dole’s wise advice and counsel to break the logjam. And Dole would then announce the Dole Compromise. And we would have health care reform. And Senator Dole would have a capstone achievement to a senate career too much of which had been spent spinning his wheels and backtracking.
care reform bill that would be blessed by Republican Senate leader Robert Dole.
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J. Bradford DeLong: August 27, 2009
As we all know, that scenario never happened. The Republican congressional delegation believed that President Clinton was in some sense illegitimate—Mr. 43%, elected only because Ross Perot hated George H.W. Bush and sabotaged his reelection. It was their business, they thought, to make it clear that Clinton’s presidency appear a failure. And Senator Dole, they said, needed to be very clear that his path to the White House was not through sharing credit with Clinton for the Health Equity Access Law That Helped of 1994 but instead by rallying to the Republican project of making Clinton’s presidency appear a failure by blocking every single initiative of his they could. In the medium run this was a disaster for Robert Dole: no presidential term, no capstone legislative achievement, and a retirement spent keenly and bitterly aware that he had opened the door to a group of Republican barons—Gingrich and company—whom he liked rather less than he liked supply-side economists. And it was a disaster for the Democratic congressional barons as well: they proved that the hick from Arkansas did not run the government, yes, but they all lost their committee chairships and many of those in Republican-leaning states lost their seats. When the president of your party is unpopular, your chances for reelection are low—never mind that you have spent most of your time blocking his legislative initiatives. The really interesting question now is: What are America’s senators now thinking, in the privacy of their offices, about this ancient history? I have drawn what I think are the appropriate lessons from it. What lessons are spinning his Landrieu, Nelson, wheelsLincoln, and backtracking. Grassley, Voinovich, and Hatch drawing? 740 words
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