Health Care Reform in the 2008 US Presidential Election
| Date | 01 March 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400111 |
| Published date | 01 March 2009 |
| Author | Antonia Maioni |
| Subject Matter | The 2008 US Election—Challenges for a New President |
Antonia Maioni
Health care reform
in the 2008 US
presidential election
| International Journal | Winter 2008-09 | 135 |
As in Canada, the challenges of health care reform are a constant political
refrain in electoral battles in the United States. Since the 1940s, in fact,
successive presidential elections have been marked by the issues of health
care access, co st, and coverage. The failure of Harry Truman’s fai r deal
proposals and the success of Lyndon Johnson’s great society project both had
core visions for health reform,while the more recent challenges faced during
Bill Clinton’s first term in office underscore the persistent problems in
addressing health care issues in the US.1
The 2008 election year lived up to its promise of political spectacle, with
a showdown between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic
Antonia Maioni is director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, as well as
associate professor of politi cal science and a William Dawson Scholar a t McGill
University. Her most recent contribution to the analysis of health care reform in Canada
and the United States, with Theodore Marmor, is
Health Care in Crisis: What’s Driving
Health Care Reform in Canada and the United States?
(2008).
1 Theodore R. Marmor,
The Politics of Medicare
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1973);
Jacob Hacker,
The Ro ad to No where: The Genesis of President Clin ton’s Plan for
Health Security
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).
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