Health Care Reform’s Inhibitors

A Health Care Bill was passed in 2010, after five unsuccessful attempts by both republican and democratic presidents. The last democratic president that tried to pass it was President Clinton in 1994. He did not enjoy the same privilege of a large democratic majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The institutions in the United States are structurally opposed to any kind of universal health care. President Obama was able to get around these institutions to pass the first Health Care Reform. Due to the decentralized nature of the American Bureaucracy power is in the hands of multiple parties, even though the culture of the American people may be led to feel differently about the Health Care issue.

My first hypothesis is that it took so many attempts at passing a health care reform because of the decentralized nature of the government. Since the founding fathers, the government has been aimed at protecting the minority party. Pitting faction against faction, in the hopes that one would be strong enough that a demagogue could not emerge, was their way of protecting future generations. Eventually the parties became so entrenched in their own views, it is now difficult to get anything done. This slowness of government makes the government appear weak to the people it represents.

The people no longer have direct representation as it was originally planned. A prism of power has emerged where there is a discrepancy between what a branch can do and what it thinks it has the power to do. There are loopholes to power in the government, so much so that it is not difficult to...

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