'Fluid Structure' of Agenda-Setting. Reflections on President Clinton's Attempt to Introduce a Universal Healthcare System and the Subsequent Reform of Healthcare Industry Under Obama Administration

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: USA, grade: A, , course: Public Policy, language: English, abstract: Based on the existing literature of policy continuity and change in American healthcare industry, my paper analyzes and compares the two reform efforts under the Obama and Clinton administrations. First, I discuss the scope of the national reform project offered by democrats during the early 1990s. Second, I question how and why similar ideas succeeded rather than failed fifteen years later. I conclude that policy proposals, which cut across the US value system, require policy entrepreneurs' combined efforts to use some of the available levers of change, based on accurate assessment of problems and target populations and the right choice of policy instruments. None of these factors, however, suffice to advance anything close to comprehensive policy change in a context of decentralized management, such as the US healthcare system.