Republicans, having lost the White House the previous year by a convincing margin, made it clear they would do anything they could to block the president's attempt to overhaul the nation's health-care system. They called it too expensive, too expansive.

The president, for his part, knew that his plan could, in some ways, set the course for the remainder of his term. The stakes were high. The best way to reach the widest possible audience: an address before a joint session of Congress — a Congress controlled by the Democrats, but with not every Democrat on board.

It is September 22, 1993, and President Clinton is about to embark on a mission to define his presidency. Health care is the issue that helped bring him to the White House, and now he was attempting to make good on his promise.

 

With the stakes as high as they were, there were problems from the outset. The wrong speech was inserted into the Telepromptr. (Inexplicably, what he had in front of him was a speech he delivered to Congress the previous February.) Yet Clinton, as much of a wonk on the issue as you could find, was brilliant, confident, poised. The speech wasn't filled with details, his critics would charge, and it still wasn't clear how it would be paid for. But the message was simple: reform the system or keep the status quo. Which is similar to what President Obama is arguing in 2009.

Clinton, like Obama in some respects today, was also on skidding on political thin ice back then. His plan on gays in the military fell on deaf ears on the GOP side, unease on the Dem side. Many Democrats had put their political futures on the line by backing the president on his budget plan that drastically increased taxes, and were in no mood for more risk-taking.

Would he get his way? "Miracles do happen," Clinton told the lawmakers that night, with an impish grin.

But miracles didn't happen. Republicans remained united against the plan. The insurance industry went all out against it as well. And members of Congress from both parties rebelled against the secrecy in which the administration — led by First Lady Hillary Clinton — crafted the bill.

The plan was officially dead a year later.

Tags: A Look Back in Politics