ABSTRACT
In the 1990s, the provision of health care appears to have gained a central political significance. Responding to the public perception of a crisis in the United States health care system, a central plank of the 1992 Clinton presidency was a health care task force committed to universal health care.2 In spite of the combination of spiralling medical expenditure yet ever-decreasing population coverage, President Clinton unambiguously pledged to give every American ‘health care that can never be taken away, health care that is always there’.3 Despite the claims that the reform plan would make a grossly unfair health care system more equitable for all, it was decisively rejected by Congress and a coalition of vested interests.4
