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24 cm, 668 pages. Footnotes, references, index, ink note on front endpaper. Signed by both authors. The inner battles of the Clinton effort to provide universal health insurance, with interviews with more than a hundred of the participants.In a blow-by-blow account of an epic political battle, two Pulitzer Prize-winning authors describe how "the system" has corrupted America's political institutions and provide a deeply disturbing analysis of today's government. Haynes Bonner Johnson (July 9, 1931 - May 24, 2013) was an American journalist, author, and television analyst. He reported on major news stories of the latter half of the 20th century and was widely regarded as one of the top political commentators. David Salzer Broder (September 11, 1929 - March 9, 2011) was an American journalist, writing for The Washington Post for over 40 years. He was an author, television news show pundit, and lecturer. For more than half a century, Broder reported on every presidential campaign, beginning with the 1956 United States presidential election between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson II. Known as the dean of the Washington, D.C. press corps, Broder made over 400 appearances on NBC's Meet the Press. The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 stated: "Broder is the best of an almost extinct species, the daily news reporter who doubles as an op-ed page columnist.With his solid reporting and shrewd analysis, Broder remains one of the sager voices in Washington." Derived from a Kirkus review: A sobering play-by-play of Bill Clinton's abortive crusade to reform health care. Clinton came into office, note Washington-based journalists Johnson and Broder, committed to making sweeping changes so that all citizens would have access to health care. However, despite his charisma, a Democratic-controlled Congress, and opinion polls showing that most Americans favored such reforms, Clinton emerged from the battle badly scarred. Johnson and Broder show that several scarcely controllable factors collided to produce the rejection of his 1,342-page bill of reform. Among them were the Republican backlash then being orchestrated by Newt Gingrich in a successful bid to become speaker of the House; lobbyists' adoption of new techniques of obtaining political access and influencing public opinion; the failure of White House staffers, led by left-leaning policymaker Ira Magaziner, to communicate their ideas effectively; competition among leading Democrats to introduce health-care packages of their own; and a highly effective campaign, spearheaded by Rush Limbaugh, to discredit Bill and Hillary Clinton, so that tempests like Whitewater came to overshadow the Clintons' legislative effort. Most of all, however, Clinton failed to reckon with the power of vested interests and of the so-called Gingrich revolution. The defeat was titanicā "Clinton scarcely mentions health care these days. Hundreds of actors wander on and off stage in a sweeping narrative that deftly underscores the crisis of confidence now troubling our political system.
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