Obama’s Deal (56 minutes): https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/obamasdeal…

1. At the beginning of this video, they note that President Obama had an opportunity with a Senate majority and large margin within the House of Representatives to move forward with health care reform. Recall back to chapter 2 and lecture 4, why would a same-party majority in both the Senate and the House matter?

2. They also discussed past attempts to pass health care reform, using the Clinton administration as an example. In the video they noted that Special Interest Groups played a role in these past attempts failing. Provide examples of what these special interest groups did to stop health care reform.

3. When the Obama administration began to move forward with health care reform, President Obama chose to take a ‘back seat,’ giving leadership to Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff during the time. Discuss Emanuel’s role in moving the health care reform agenda forward. Discuss the aspects of congressional buy-in, congressional insiders, and ‘good will and personal relationships’ with congress.

4. Seven weeks into Obama’s presidency, he conferred with Democrats, Republicans, doctors, lobbyists, ‘friends and potential enemies’, among others on how to overhaul health care. The goal was to bring stakeholders to the table. One comment that was made was, “You can be at the table or you can be on the menu.” How do you interpret that?

(As an aside, while watching this portion, take note of a couple other things here in the context of the ACA we know today: Individual mandate as part of a ‘quid pro quo’; and a public option was part of the original plan.)

5. What do campaign contributions do in general for industries that make these contributions? (Note that this is not about an individual person making a contribution to a politician’s campaign. This is about corporations and industries.)

6. At one point in moving the health care reform agenda forward, they talk about a potential deal with the pharmaceutical industry, which included a man by the name of Billy Tauzin. Who was he? What was his former position? This deal making was placed in the context of “buy-in to eliminate pockets of opposition.” What were some of the reactions to this deal making?