Abstract
Reforming the US health care system was one of the top priorities of the presidential battle in 1992 and William Jefferson Clinton managed to appear as the most competent candidate to deliver a comprehensive plan to solve this problem. Since the late 1970's, the country was facing problems because of its health care system. Many Americans had no health insurance, and the first cause of individual bankruptcy was due to high medical expanses. American companies also faced competitive disadvantages because of high health care costs: from 1965 to 1989, business spending on health benefit climbed from 2.2 % to 8.3% of wages and salaries and from 8.4 % to 56% of pre-tax corporate profits. But those problems only came up at the national level after Wofford's 1991 victory in the senatorial election in Pennsylvania. Indeed, the latter used the health care issue to win those elections and as a result, paved the way for the national leader to utilise this topic in order to get elected. The Health Security Act (HSA) delivered by Clinton and his administration in 1993 pretended to be universal and of high quality. But, above all, it was a strategic tool which ultimate aim was to legitimate the Democrats within the US political sphere for decades to come.
