President Clinton
President Clinton, the first president of the Democratic Party in 12 years, made national health care reform a priority on his list.
President Bill Clinton's Address on Health Care Reform, 1993:
However, his Health Security Act, which aimed for universal health care coverage, failed to pass Congress. This is attributed to factors such as a decrease in popularity of the plan among the American people and lobbying from doctors, drug companies, and insurance companies.
"There were many mistakes and misjudgments that surrounded the campaign to achieve universal coverage: The Administration assumed that a 43 percent electoral plurality was a mandate for a tremendously complicated overhaul of a system as sensitive as health care. It showed a continuing uncertainty about how to deal with Republicans, and an overly combative political approach. It even assumed that when the public said it favored fundamental change in health care that it meant the kind of change the policy analysts wanted."
-"THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE: What Went Wrong?" The New York Times, 1994