The National Archives released about 4,000 pages of previously confidential documents involving Bill and Hillary Clinton and his administration, providing a glimpse into the ultimately unsuccessful struggles of his health care task force, led by the first lady, and other Clinton priorities such as the U.S. economy and a major trade agreement, according to the Associated Press.
Hillary Clinton's potential White House campaign has increased interest in Clinton Presidential Library documents from her husband's administration during the 1990s and her own decades in public service, the AP reported.
A former secretary of state and New York senator, Mrs. Clinton is the leading Democratic contender to succeed President Barack Obama, though she has not said whether she will run, according to AP.
Friday's documents included memos related to the former president's ill-fated health care reform proposal in 1993 and 1994, a plan that failed to win support in Congress and turned into a rallying cry for Republicans in the 1994 midterm elections, the AP reported.
As first lady, Hillary Clinton chaired her husband's health care task force, largely meeting in secret to develop a plan to provide universal health insurance coverage, according to the AP.
White House aides expressed initial optimism about her ability to help craft and enact a major overhaul of U.S. health care, the AP reported.
"The first lady's months of meetings with the Congress has produced a significant amount of trust and confidence by the members in her ability to help produce a viable health reform legislative product with the president," said an undated and unsigned document, according to the AP.
But the documents also showed the growing concerns among Clinton's fellow Democrats in Congress. Lawmakers, it said, "going to their home districts for the August break are petrified about having difficult health care reform issues/questions thrown at them," the AP reported.
Top aides wrote an April 1993 memo saying pessimistic cost-savings projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office were "petrifying an already scared Congress," according to the AP.
"CBO has the very real potential to sink an already leaking health reform ship," said the memo, signed by Clinton aides Chris Jennings and Steve Ricchetti, the latter now a top aide to Vice President Joe Biden, the AP reported.
Other documents released Friday offered a glimpse into the juggling of priorities early in Clinton's first term and administration concerns after Republicans took control of the House and Senate in the 1994 elections, as well, according to the AP.
