Intensive Care

Norman J. Ornstein; Thomas E. Mann

doi:10.5771/9780815716679

Summary

The devastating and politically consequential defeat of President Clinton's comprehensive health plan in Congress has unleashed a torrent of speculation over "who or what killed reform." One class of explanation deals with the institutional arrangements by which policy is made in the United States and, more specifically, with the rules and organization of Congress. This volume weighs the importance of Congress in the failure to enact health reform by examining more broadly how Congress shapes health policyon matters ranging from ambitious plans to achieve universal health insurance coverage to annual appropriations for public health agencies.

Part One examines how Congress has organized and equipped itself to make health policy. Individual chapters consider how committee jurisdictions, budgeting procedures, information, and oversight influence health policymaking. Part Two uses recent health policy episodesthe 1988-89 adoption and repeal of Medicare catastrophic coverage and the 1993-94 failure to pass national health reformto generalize about how process shapes policy.

This book is a product of the Renewing Congress Project, a joint undertaking of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute. The contributors include C. Lawrence Evans, College of William and Mary; Mark Nadel, General Accounting Office; Julie Rovner, freelance health policy writer; and Allen Schick and Joseph White, Brookings.

Copublished with the American Enterprise Institute

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2011
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-5463-3
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-1667-9
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 316
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
1. Congressional Structures and Processes No access
2. Health Policymaking No access
3. Improving Congressional Performance No access
1. 1. Importance of Jurisdiction No access
  2. Who Has Health? No access
  3. Implications No access
  4. Conclusion No access
2. 1. The Congressional Budget Process(es) No access
  2. Deficit Reduction and Health Entitlement Policymaking No access
  3. Budgeting for AIDS Treatment and Research No access
  4. Health Care Reform, 1993–94 No access
  5. The Future No access
3. 1. Coping with Uncertainty No access
  2. Availability of Information No access
  3. Information Use in Congress No access
  4. Explaining the Use of Policy-Analytic Information in Congress No access
  5. Congress and Information, with Thoughts on the 104th No access
4. 1. The Changing Nature of Oversight No access
  2. Techniques of Oversight No access
  3. Setting the Oversight Agenda No access
  4. Changing the Agenda: How the Parties Differ No access
  5. Is Oversight Systematic? No access
  6. How Effective Is Health Policy Oversight? No access
1. 1. About Medicare No access
  2. Why Catastrophic? No access
  3. The Road to Passage No access
  4. House Action No access
  5. Senate Action No access
  6. House-Senate Conference No access
  7. The Backlash No access
  8. Implications for Health Reform No access
2. 1. Prologue No access
  2. Development of the Clinton Plan No access
  3. Autumn 1993: Handing the Ball Off to Congress No access
  4. The Battle Engaged No access
  5. Committee Action No access
  6. Leadership Attempts to Reconcile No access
  7. Floor Action No access
  8. The End No access
  9. Conclusions No access
3. 1. The President's Agenda No access
  2. (Mis)Reading Public Opinion No access
  3. Fractured Interests No access
  4. In Congress Disassembled No access
  5. Parties in Conflict No access
  6. Committee Breakdown No access
  7. Leaders as Followers No access
  8. What Congress Learned About Itself No access
Notes No access Pages 273 - 304
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