Cycnos | Volume 29.1 - Législation et progrès socio-économique dans le monde anglophone | Avènement et consolidation de l'État-providence

Résumé :

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was not only a major socio-economic evolution, along with a long-time Democratic promise, but it was also the source of the greatest Democratic electoral defeat in decades. This article analyses the reasons why the Democrats defended their health-care reform as a pragmatic, cost-efficient measure and not as a social justice imperative. Cautious and convinced that such a large reform should rest on a broad political base, the Democrats looked in vain for a bipartisan compromise. Constrained by the American institutional framework and a highly polarized electorate, Barack Obama learnt the hard way the limits of a president’s capacity to bring about change. The passage of Obama’s controversial health-care reform illustrates the difficulties for the Democrats to establish a new form of political progressivism in America.

Mots-clés : welfare state, Barack Obama, « Blue Dogs », cost control, health-care reform, Medicare, Medicaid, patient progressivism, Protection and Affordable Care Act, universal rights

Date de publication : 2016-04-20