Health Policy Failure

Congress now plays a major role in the development of health policies, and how they are formulated. Within the last 50 years it has expanded its roles for the Federal government, most recently through prescription drug coverage, Medicaid, (Medicare part D passed under Bush), Veterans Affairs and then through the PPACA that requires everyone to purchase health insurance and setting minimum coverage requirements for health insurance policies. Congress may seem highly complex and technical. Actually, the process itself is fairly simple it just takes more time than we like it to. The most recent round of proposals for a great change in the American Health Care System reaching an all time high, scholars and practitioners have been reading lessons

The most common storyline is a narrative on why the Clinton health plan in the early 1990’s failed and why the proposals of today are likely to meet the same fate. Another common claim is that according to in-depths analyses of past legislative successes and failures, health policies are all too often mired in a political gridlock. Many scholars of the United States Congress would respond to these by questioning what is actually unique about the health policies that facilitate such legislative inaction. What is the reason, if there is one at all, that health policy proposals are more likely to die in committee or to fail in both houses of Congress than are proposals from other policy areas? Are these health policy proposals too complex or too simple for Congress? Should one of the lessons be that we should exam other health politics and policymaking to see how the health policy area can be

Health care spending is a major and rapidly growing component of the U.S. economy, and each significant policy change has had unforeseen consequences requiring further policy modifications. Hence, the role of policy experts is often the focus of scholarly accounts of successful and failed health policy reforms (e.g., Hacker 1997, Johnson and Broder 1996, Skocpol 1996, regarding the Clinton health reform proposal). Participants both within and outside of Congress can, over time, acquire the necessary expertise to anticipate and avoid obstacles to both political and policy success. Bills formulated by experts are thus thought to be more likely to find their way through the legislative process, which motivates the following