The Clinton Healthcare Reform Plan: A Resort to Place

Geographers have given little attention to the attempts by the Clinton administration to reform the US health care “system”. This paper considers the use of spatialized language in key documents and debates associated with the reform process. It considers the ways in which the administration exercised a Foucauldian form of governmentality appealing to interest groups and individuals on the basis of notions of place-in-society, place-in-life cycle, place-in-health care system and geographical place. These tactics are set in the context of the identified key principles underpinning the need for reform. The paper concludes by suggesting that whilst Clinton, in his attempts to achieve health care reform, may have appeared politically naive, his strategic use of sense of place was, on the contrary, very perceptive.