On March 23, 2010 President Barack Obama Signed Into Law the Most Sweeping Reform of The

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

POLI 308 US Presidency

Executive Summary

Bill Newmann

The following is a sample executive summary examining the Obama administration’s passage of the

Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. I have made comments in it to explain what I was doing with each paragraph and some sentences. I have used the endnotes to explain what types of sources

I would use. I did this to show you what needs to be cited. I did not include actual sources, however.

For format, please see the other sample or any of the standard citation models listed in the assignment. On March 23, 2010 President Barack Obama signed into law the most sweeping reform of the US health care system since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. The Patient Protection and

Affordable Care Act was passed by the US Congress in spite of the Obama administration’s frequent political mistakes during the debate on the legislation.1 The Obama strategy for passage of this landmark legislation was flawed in three areas: Obama’s poor communication efforts; an unusual year-long delay before the administration succinctly stated its health care priorities; and the opposition’s success in portraying the legislation in a negative light. Ultimately, the administration lost the battle to shape the public’s perception of the bill. Only numerical control of congress by Democrats allowed the unpopular bill to be passed.

The Obama administration’s communication efforts were flawed in several ways. The administration failed to identify the key aspects of the bill in a clear and concise manner. Health care speeches by administration officials did not have the clarity necessary to explain complex legislation in easy to digest sound bites that have become the hallmark of presidential communication.2 Instead speeches by Obama and officials such as secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen

Sebelius were laundry-lists of items without prioritization.3 The administration seemed unable to focus on its key agenda or a small set of key health care goals. Obama’s press conference of July 23, 2009 was emblematic. After an hour long press conference intended to kick-off Obama’s push for health care legislation, the president answered a question about the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates in his own Cambridge home.4 The press focused on that issue and the health care content of the press conference was forgotten.

The Obama administration did not identify its key priorities for health care until February 23,

2010, roughly a year after it should have done so.5 The reformulation of the communications strategy was obscured by the fact that the posting on the White House web site that required six clicks to reach from the main White House home page.6 By this time, the legislation had already been attacked by its opponents and the mid-term election cycle had begun. The poor communication strategy and the year’s delay before detailing the administration’s priorities allowed opponents of the legislation to successfully portray the health care legislation in a negative way. In the war of spin – attaching meaning to or framing the debate on some event or policy – opponents had branded the policy as “big government,”7 “socialism,”8 even spreading lies about the legislation such as claims that the policy that would include “death panels” to decide who would live or die.9 Public support for the policy, derisively labeled “Obamacare” fell to under 50% in most polls by the fall of 2009.10 The administration’s efforts to fight back and redefine the policy in early 2010 were too little, too late. By the time the legislation was passed public support for the plan was at 40% in most polls.11

The passage of the bill ultimately depended on the sheer numerical control of congress by

Democrats. The Senate passed the bill on December 24, 2009 by a partisan vote of 60-39 (all Democrats voted for the legislation; all Republicans voted against it).12 The bill passed in the House of

Representatives in a similar partisan way 219-212 (all votes for the bill came from Democrats; all

Republicans and 34 Democrats voted against the bill).13 The Obama administration may have succeeded in passing its legislation, but the outcome was much less decisive and the reforms were less popular than they could have been. The future of the legislation was in doubt immediately after passage. The 2010 elections gave the House to Republicans, who have already passed legislation to repeal the health care plan14 and many states have challenged the constitutionality of the legislation.15 ENDNOTES 1 Cite the legislation itself. Text of legislation can be found on the Library of Congress’s Thomas system (thomas.loc.gov) 2 This can be a source on presidential communication 3 Cite a speech, maybe a transcript or a journalistic commentary on a speech. 4 Cite a news article on the speech and a transcript of the speech. 5 Cite a source on the content of the administration’s press release. 6 Cite the web site. Source 4 and 5 may be the same. That’s fine. You can use a source more than once in a paper. 7 Cite a source that describes the legislation this way. 8 Cite a source that describes the legislation this way. 9 Cite a source that describes the legislation this way. 10 Cite some poll numbers from Pollingreport.com or the Gallup polls. Both are linked to the class syllabus. 11 Cite some poll numbers from Pollingreport.com or the Gallup polls. Both are linked to the class syllabus. 12 Cite an article on the bill’s passage that has the numbers. 13 Cite an article on the bill’s passage that has the numbers. 14 Cite an article on the legislation and the legislation itself. 15 Cite an article on the legal battle.