(3 of 8)
Magaziner was not popular among health-care pros in Washington; he dismissed them -- often to their faces -- as too isolated to be part of the solution. Inside the campaign too there were private worries about Magaziner's math. After he had finished his work on the book, the grumbling turned public. As a result, Clinton launched one more conference call with his top health-care advisers on June 22. From the Governor's mansion in Little Rock, he reached Magaziner at a miniature-golf course near his home in Providence, Rhode Island, where he was relaxing with his children. He located Bruce Reed at Georgetown University Hospital, where his own health-care bill was rising while his wife was undergoing tests for a stomach ailment. He found Joshua Wiener, a Brookings Institution fellow, clipping hedges at his home in Washington. Wiener grabbed some of his kids' purple-dinosaur scratch paper and, at his kitchen table, retabulated the costs and savings one more time. He figured Clinton needed $50 billion for a bare-bones benefit package, and he doubted Magaziner's savings could generate that.
During the testy 45-minute call, the debate boiled down to Magaziner vs. Wiener. Clinton probed both men over and over, even as he kept one eye on a golf tournament on television. Magaziner's numbers were appealing, but Wiener wouldn't budge. At that point, Clinton came alive not in anger but in frustration. "Goddammit," he said, "now I know why no President has ever fixed this problem." Reed, who had been listening quietly, finally suggested a third way. Everything on a chart listing budget changes, Reed noted, had to fall under a column labeled SAVINGS or a column marked INVESTMENTS. If Magaziner and Wiener couldn't decide whether health-care reform saved money or cost money, why not just leave it out of the budget chart entirely? Recalls Reed: "Everyone jumped at the idea." The problem had been finessed for the moment. The presses rolled.
THE SMORGASBORD APPROACH
Three months later, Clinton was ahead in the polls but losing traction on health care. Top advisers noticed that he sounded confused on the stump, skipping back and forth between reform plans without clarifying which one he was for. Health-care groups with various agendas bombarded Clinton's Little Rock campaign headquarters with faxes charging him with backing away from the issue. In fact, the campaign was in a deliberate straddle. Clinton's aides, led by James Carville and pollster Greenberg, told him health care was important but cautioned him that the less specific he was, the better. After all, distilling his plan into 30-second commercials was nearly impossible. The Clinton priorities were aptly summed up by the sign Carville had erected in the war room. One line -- IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID -- became such a cliche that it overshadowed the other lines: CHANGE VERSUS MORE OF THE SAME. DON'T FORGET HEALTH CARE.