Can President Obama’s Reputation Rebound from Healthcare Reform?

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It is 1993 and Hillary Clinton is the face of healthcare reform. If Americans remember the tenets of her husband’s healthcare agenda as delivered during his presidential campaign the previous year, they hardly hold him accountable for its execution now. Instead, it is a Chanel-suited Hillary that collects the criticism for a universal healthcare initiative that is eventually deemed too liberal, too broad, and too radical for the American public. It is also Hillary who shoulders the blame for the plan’s failure a year later.

Move forward to 2007, and despite her strong reputation in Senate, Clinton’s looming campaign for president is already handicapped by the healthcare woes of her husband’s administration. More than 13 years later, Clinton’s political reputation has yet to fully rebound from the failure of a healthcare plan that she was not even responsible for designing. As a result, Clinton would spend the bulk of her campaign defending her readiness to negotiate the legislative process.

Today, President Obama is in the midst of his second year in office, and once again healthcare reform lingers across the lips of the American public. But if Hillary Clinton still walks with the shame of a failed attempt at healthcare reform under her husband’s administration, will President Obama’s reputation recover if his efforts flat line under his own administration?

Obama’s first year of presidency has been defined by healthcare. Even as his work to revive the nation’s economy and deal with foreign policy has been met with both praise and criticism, nothing has posed more of a problem for his administration than healthcare reform; and not just in policy, but in time and resources as well. Campaigning on “change,” Obama inherited a large agenda from the Bush administration, and his dwindling approval rating suggests that Americans are not satisfied with the pace in which change arrives. Expectations for Obama are wide-reaching, and arguably see him spread thin in some areas, but Americans still thirsty for jobs and economic stability have grown impatient with waiting in line behind healthcare.

In addition to the time Obama has invested in healthcare reform, it is the specifics of his agenda that have polarized the nation too. In 2005 Hillary Clinton told the New York Times that she had learned “the importance of bipartisan politics, and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done,” in response to her healthcare experience as first lady. Though Obama has acknowledged the importance of having bipartisan support for healthcare reform to be successful, he continues to push forward with his plan even as Republican support wanes.  And like healthcare reform under President Clinton’s administration, Obama’s plan has been criticized for being too costly and over-ambitious. There also lies a fear among some middle-class Americans that Obama’s plan caters too much toward the uninsured to benefit the already insured.

Realistically, the task of healthcare reform is difficult in any capacity, and criticism thrown toward Obama’s agenda is expected. But with each passing week the likelihood of Obama’s Senate supported plan making it throughthe House shrinks, and it will be difficult for him to rebound from the failure of an issue that he pursued so aggressively in his first year. For many Americans it won’t be a matter of failed healthcare reform that causes them to question Obama’s leadership –the nation has seen that before- but, instead, a matter of time wasted. There’s a heightened eagerness across the nation to hold Obama accountable for the promises of his campaign, and a failed attempt at tackling healthcare is just what his political opponents need to undermine the strength of his administration.

To say that Obama made a mistake in pursuing healthcare reform would be unfair.  Change rarely arrives by way of neglect. Still, a stronger plan of action would have included better pacing and presentation. Not only has healthcare legislation reentered the American consciousness in a rushed wave of press conferences and new stories, but it has also left the average citizen wondering: “What does healthcare reform mean for me?” Though Obama’s plan has seen plenty of exposure, many Americans are still unsure of the impact it will have on their own lives, even as they stay abreast of news coverage. That is to say that if Obama’s healthcare efforts do prove unfruitful, the American public will not have been informed enough about the plan to mourn its loss and champion Obama’s efforts.

With all of that in mind, will Obama be able to rebound from a failed healthcare initiative; or will any possible bid for reelection be marred by the shortcomings of his first year?

Tagged as: Clinton, healthcare, Obama, reform

Article by Brandon Floyd

Brandon Floyd is a graduate of Ohio University, with a B.A. in English Literature. You can read his blog at www.thissht.blogspot.com, or follow him on Twitter: @BFloyd86

Brandon has written 10 article(s) for us.