Health reform and the obama administration: reflections in mid-2010.

Racial prejudice predicts opposition to Obama and his health care reform plan

The present study examines the relationship between racial prejudice and reactions to President Barack Obama and his policies. Before the 2008 election, participants’ levels of implicit and explicit anti-Black prejudice were measured. Over the following days and months, voting behavior, attitudes toward Obama, and attitudes toward Obama’s health care reform plan were assessed. Controlling for e...

Presidents and health reform: from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama.

The health care reforms that President Barack Obama signed into law in March 2010 were seventy-five years in the making. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. presidents have struggled to enact national health care reform; most failed. This article explores the highly charged political landscape in which Obama maneuvered and the skills he brought to bear. It contrasts his accomplishments with the e...

Long time coming: why health reform finally passed.

Health reformers have an established record of losing. Going into 2009, there were plenty of reasons to believe that they would fail again. A polarized political environment, soaring budget deficits, and myriad other obstacles stood in the way. Yet the Obama administration and congressional Democrats defied the odds. Democrats won the 2009-10 health reform battle by successfully applying lesson...

Obama taps new allies and tackles age-old divisions in nudging health care reform.

Symposium Introduction Fdr and Obama: Are There Constitutional Law Lessons from the New Deal for the Obama Administration?

It was the popular media that first made the comparison between an Obama presidency and that of Franklin Roosevelt. The media did not wait until President Obama took office, but began the comparisons in earnest after the presidential election of 2008, perhaps most famously on Time Magazine’s November 24, 2008 cover depicting a photoshopped Barack Obama in a characteristic pose of the New Deal P...