American History: Bill Clinton’s First Term as President

22 February 2012

President Bill Clinton watches as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, his nominee for Supreme Court justice, takes the oath of office in 1993

STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

This week in our series, we continue the story of America’s forty-second president, Bill Clinton.

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Bill Clinton took office in January of nineteen ninety-three.

During his eight years as president, he appointed more women and minorities to the government than any president before him. He also appointed the second woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court.

For the first two years of his presidency, Bill Clinton had a Congress controlled by members of his own party, the Democrats. Still, he failed in his efforts to pass legislation to reform the nation's health care system.

During the presidential campaign, Bill Clinton had promised to help millions of Americans get health care coverage.

BILL CLINTON: This health care system of ours is badly broken, and it is time to fix it. Despite the dedication of literally millions of talented health care professionals, our health care is too uncertain and too expensive, too bureaucratic, and too wasteful. It has too much fraud and too much greed. We must make this our most urgent priority – giving every American health security, health care that can never be taken away, health care that is always there.”