The system: the american way of politics at the breaking point

The authors of this text seek to show in detail how "the system" has corrupted America's political institutions. They take as an example the Clinton healthcare reform initiative - the most ambitious call for US government action since the 1960s. Granted access to meetings by Bill and Hillary Clinton, Senators Bob Dole, Edward Kennedy and Newt Gingrich amongst others, the authors use the proceedings and the healthcare plan to provide a blow-by-blow account of the destruction of a policy which sought to please everyone and ended by satisfying no-one. They argue this was due to interstate pressure groups, party political bickering, political gamesmanship and the sheer inertia of the American "system".