This work analyses whether the polls in 1993 and 1994 misled US policy makers about the urgency of health care reform. It reviews the attitudes of Americans about their own health care, their concerns about reform of the system, and the views they hold about the importance of the issue.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton presented his Health Security Act to the US Congress. The legislation was intended to reform the nation's health care system while mandating the provision of health insurance to all Americans. A number of factors influenced the genesis and demise of the Act between 1993 and 1994, including presidential politics, opposition from powerful interest groups and waning public support for the legislation. This thesis investigates whether and how race and class influenced debate over Clinton's health care reform proposal. Evidence is presented that race and class affected Clinton's decision to champion healthcare reform, lent credibility to health insurance industry advertisements opposing the president's legislation and influenced public opinion on government-financed health care, and by extension health care reform. These findings indicate that race and class may have played a role in the evolution and resolution of the 1993 to 1994 health care reform debate.

This compilation is a valuable tool for policymakers and all others concerned with the most pressing social issue of our time. Editor Pauline Vaillancourt Rosenau has brought together a diverse group of distinguished scholars and policymakers to examine health reform issues, offering readers the broadest possible perspective.

This dissertation examines the role of public opinion in President Clinton's 1993–94 proposal for comprehensive national health insurance. The dissertation challenges the dominant interpretation of the 1993–4 health care debate: that the public wanted universal health care, Clinton attempted to deliver it to them, but failed because of a flawed political process. Different analysts see different flaws, but most agree that the health care debate was indicative of an â€unhealthy†political process, where special interests dominated a debate marred by misinformation and big money. Some go so far as to conclude that universal health care is â€terminally ill,†forever doomed by an institutional structure that fragments power, allowing well-organized, well-financed special interest groups to easily dominate the political playing field. Using public opinion and archival data, the central findings include: (1) The public did not ever strongly support the Clinton Plan. A majority initially supported the Clinton plan, but felt the plan would affect them adversely; (2) Public support of the Clinton Plan would have dissipated, even without the unprecedented campaign waged against it by business interests; (3) Elected officials listened to the public. Public opinion affected the health care debate in important ways. Clinton eschewed the so-called â€single payer†approach to health care, fearing adverse public reaction. Second, anticipating hostile public opinion, Democrats in the House of Representatives froze their chamber's consideration of the health care reform until the Senate spoke on controversial aspects of the plan. And public opinion directly affected senators' decisions to support or oppose health reform. In particular, Senate Republicans sought to kill health reform when the polls turned against the Clinton Plan. The debate over health reform, while imperfect in many ways, was still indicative of healthy political process. The Clinton Plan forced a debate about the role of government in American society. Here, as in many cases, the public showed both support for the ends of the government involvement but discomfort in granting the government broad new powers. The public understood the broad choices the Clinton Plan presented and rejected it. Moreover, that the public significantly influenced public policy.

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. "The definitive social history of the medical profession in America....A monumental achievement."—H. Jack Geiger, M.D., New York Times Book Review