In an analysis of the sociopolitical context of the debate on health care reform in the United States, the author focuses on the political events that led to the election of a Democratic administration in 1992; the evolution of the White House task force on health care reform and the interests and positions it represented; the connection between economic and political power in the United States; and the reasons for the defeat of the health care reform proposal. This historical analysis questions some of the dominant interpretations of the failure to reform health care, which assume that the U.S. population was not yet ready for these reforms.
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