--- title: Hillary Clinton Docs: Staffers Plot Political Theater on Health Care description: The latest batch of documents released by Bill Clinton's presidential library show how staffers planned a public hearing for the purpose of "political inoculation" ahead of the health reform debate canonical: https://time.com/25364/clinton-documents-hillary-health-care-reform-2016/ author: Denver Nicks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-14T19:22:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:47:53.491Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hillary Clinton Docs: Staffers Plot Political Theater on Health Care og:description: The latest batch of documents released by Bill Clinton's presidential library show how staffers planned a public hearing for the purpose of "political inoculation" ahead of the health reform debate og:url: https://time.com/25364/clinton-documents-hillary-health-care-reform-2016/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6ce6457d77346f2/698683641eebf74c0636f966/771490.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Hillary Clinton At George Washington University og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hillary Clinton Docs: Staffers Plot Political Theater on Health Care twitter:description: The latest batch of documents released by Bill Clinton's presidential library show how staffers planned a public hearing for the purpose of "political inoculation" ahead of the health reform debate twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6ce6457d77346f2/698683641eebf74c0636f966/771490.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Clinton Docs Reveal Staffers Plotting Political Theater > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Mar 14, 2014 7:22 PM UTC  Then First Lady Hillary Clinton speaks at George Washington University, Sept. 10, 1993 in Washington, DC. Then First Lady Hillary Clinton speaks at George Washington University, Sept. 10, 1993 in Washington, DC. Diana Walker—Getty Images  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Mar 14, 2014 7:22 PM UTC In the run up to a 1993 Clinton administration public hearing on health care reform, staffers had some seemingly cynical advice for then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. The “primary goal,” of the hearing, they [wrote in a memo](http://www.clintonlibrary.gov/assets/storage/Research%20-%20Digital%20Library/formerlywithheld/batch2/2006-0770-F.pdf), was not to gather a variety of perspectives before fashioning government policy, but to give the Clintons political cover from charges that they didn’t gather other perspectives. That’s according to the latest round of newly disclosed Clinton-era documents, 4,000 pages of which were released Friday by the National Archives and the Clinton Presidential Library. The first release—3,500 pages unveiled in February—included, among other [interesting tidbits](http://time.com/10794/hillary-clinton-2016-bill-library-documents/), insights on how Hillary Clinton’s aides advised her to “be real” as she embarked on her own political career in the late 1990s. The document releases are being closely watched for any impact they could have on a potential 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential run. The health care reform hearing memo is dated Feb. 10, 1993, early in the Clinton presidency. Just a few days later the president would deliver his first-ever televised address from the Oval Office, in which he would ask Americans to accept a tax hike in his ultimately successful effort to balance the budget. The administration was also preparing to make its ultimately-doomed push for national health care reform, a cause championed by the First Lady. In the memo, administration staffers Alexis Herman and Mike Lux offer Hillary Clinton their vision for a public hearing on health care issues to be held in March. In the first line of the document, they get right to the point. “As we discussed,” the memo reads, “the primary goal for this two day hearing would be to inculate ourselves from charges that we are refusing to listen to all those groups out there that want input.” Later, they do make allowances for the possibility that someone might actually learn something at the hearing. “Even though our primary goal is political inoculation,” they write, “we should not lose the opportunity for some public education. Some testifiers should be average people with horror stories, middle class families worried about the future, and senior citizens.” But, they say, “these average people should testify during those periods when we believe more people will be watching.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/25364/clinton-documents-hillary-health-care-reform-2016/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/25364/clinton-documents-hillary-health-care-reform-2016/"},"headline":"Clinton Docs Reveal Staffers Plotting Political Theater","datePublished":"2014-03-14T19:22:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:47:53.491Z","description":"The latest batch of documents released by Bill Clinton's presidential library show how staffers planned a public hearing for the purpose of \"political inoculation\" ahead of the health reform debate","url":"https://time.com/25364/clinton-documents-hillary-health-care-reform-2016/","keywords":["2016 Election","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election","Bill Clinton"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6ce6457d77346f2/698683641eebf74c0636f966/771490.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Denver Nicks","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6ce6457d77346f2/698683641eebf74c0636f966/771490.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hillary Clinton At George Washington University","caption":"Hillary Clinton At George Washington University","creditText":"Diana Walker—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/25364/clinton-documents-hillary-health-care-reform-2016/","name":"Clinton Docs Reveal Staffers Plotting Political Theater"}}]}] ```