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Business's Ideologically and Politically Motivated Reversal of Support for Clinton's Health Security Act
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Northeastern Political Science Association Paper Proposal for the
Parties, Interest Groups, Social Movements and Electoral Behavior Panel
“Businesses’ Ideologically and Politically Motivated Reversal of Support for Clinton’s
Health Security Act”
Joseph Corrado Ph.D. Candidate, Temple University, Address: 110 Alter Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147, Phone: 215-468-7979, email:
## email not listed ##
,
## email not listed ##
(no fax)
Advisor: Dr. Sandra Suarez, Temple University Abstract: In essence, my research question is why didn’t “big business” support Clinton’s health reform act even when it appeared as if it was in the economic interest of most businesses to support this legislation. My thesis has three parts: 1) Business preferences change over the course of the life of the life of an issue or over the policymaking process. 2) The changing nature of business preferences is due to the fact that business preferences aren’t fixed or static so different factors will affect them at different points in time. 3) In order to have a holistic understanding of business preferences economic, political, institutional, and ideological factors must all be considered.
The dominant paradigm for understanding business preferences is that they are driven
by bottom line concerns. This is the economic model of depicting business preferences. Cathie Jo Martin (2000) showed that human resource managers for medium to large sized firms supported the employer mandate, or a government mandate that would require businesses to provide health coverage for their employees to a certain extent, due to institutional factors such as having a governmental affairs office or belonging to a health care coalition. This is the institutional model for depicting business preferences. Additionally business preferences can be guided by political factors such as attempting to have a good working relationship with Congress or the presidential administration, or ‘appearing’ to be for certain legislation in order to improve their legitimacy in the eyes of the public, and/or pragmatic considerations based on the best possible compromise position. This is the political model. Finally business preferences may be shaped by ideological considerations. One such consideration is business’ traditional and historical ‘knee-jerk’ distrust of government (Vogel, 1996). The second ideological source of business preferences comes from historically contingent paradigms or worldviews. Peter Hall (1993) categorizes the current policymaking paradigm as one that is a mix between supply side and monetarist ideas. Additionally Plotke (1992) noted how business interpreted the political climate and determined a strategy for action in the early to mid 1970s. The ideological model suggests that business preferences are determined by ideological factors such as these.
These models for depicting business preferences were traced for their predictive
ability of the course of the policymaking process of Clinton’s Health Security Act. The first historical case study was during the ‘issue emergence’ stage 1990-1992. The second case study occurred during the presidential stage (when Clinton exercised presidential leadership and the health reform debate was centered within the presidential
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| | Authors: Corrado, Joseph. |
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1
Northeastern Political Science Association Paper Proposal for the
Parties, Interest Groups, Social Movements and Electoral Behavior Panel
“Businesses’ Ideologically and Politically Motivated Reversal of Support for Clinton’s
Health Security Act”
Joseph Corrado Ph.D. Candidate, Temple University,
Address: 110 Alter Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147, Phone: 215-468-7979,
email:
## email not listed ##
,
## email not listed ##
(no fax)
Advisor: Dr. Sandra Suarez, Temple University
Abstract:
In essence, my research question is why didn’t “big business” support Clinton’s health
reform act even when it appeared as if it was in the economic interest of most businesses
to support this legislation. My thesis has three parts: 1) Business preferences change over
the course of the life of the life of an issue or over the policymaking process. 2) The
changing nature of business preferences is due to the fact that business preferences aren’t
fixed or static so different factors will affect them at different points in time. 3) In order
to have a holistic understanding of business preferences economic, political, institutional,
and ideological factors must all be considered.
The dominant paradigm for understanding business preferences is that they are driven
by bottom line concerns. This is the economic model of depicting business preferences.
Cathie Jo Martin (2000) showed that human resource managers for medium to large sized
firms supported the employer mandate, or a government mandate that would require
businesses to provide health coverage for their employees to a certain extent, due to
institutional factors such as having a governmental affairs office or belonging to a health
care coalition. This is the institutional model for depicting business preferences.
Additionally business preferences can be guided by political factors such as attempting to
have a good working relationship with Congress or the presidential administration, or
‘appearing’ to be for certain legislation in order to improve their legitimacy in the eyes of
the public, and/or pragmatic considerations based on the best possible compromise
position. This is the political model. Finally business preferences may be shaped by
ideological considerations. One such consideration is business’ traditional and historical
‘knee-jerk’ distrust of government (Vogel, 1996). The second ideological source of
business preferences comes from historically contingent paradigms or worldviews. Peter
Hall (1993) categorizes the current policymaking paradigm as one that is a mix between
supply side and monetarist ideas. Additionally Plotke (1992) noted how business
interpreted the political climate and determined a strategy for action in the early to mid
1970s. The ideological model suggests that business preferences are determined by
ideological factors such as these.
These models for depicting business preferences were traced for their predictive
ability of the course of the policymaking process of Clinton’s Health Security Act. The
first historical case study was during the ‘issue emergence’ stage 1990-1992. The second
case study occurred during the presidential stage (when Clinton exercised presidential
leadership and the health reform debate was centered within the presidential
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