Using just 10 pages, Hillary Rodham Clinton has crafted something that she could not manage in 1,300 pages the last time she tried: a blueprint for reconstructing the nation’s medical insurance system with better-than-even-odds of boosting her political fortunes.

As soon as the New York senator and Democratic presidential hopeful unveiled her plan last week, it was clear she had learned plenty about political salesmanship since 1994, when the complex plan she wrote as her husband’s top health policy adviser was summarily trashed at the Capitol before a single vote was cast.

Keeping it short and simple, and leaving the details to Congress, are not the only lessons learned from the worst defeat of her political career. Clinton’s new proposal is carefully calibrated to avoid provoking bitter opposition from two powerful forces that were instrumental in scuttling her first effort: small businesses and the insurance industry. And sure enough, representatives of both groups are steering clear of confrontational reactions while reserving final judgments.

Still, the heart of Clinton’s plan — universal coverage — has not changed in 13 years, and is an essential element of her appeal to the liberals who still dominate Democratic primaries. Promising to insure all Americans should help Clinton maintain her wide lead in national polls; John Edwards is alone among her principal rivals in advocating universal coverage.

Most politically significant for Clinton in the race for the nomination is how she’s outflanked her closest foe in national polls. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois backed away from universal coverage in his health plan — and didn’t help matters by skipping last week’s Iowa health care forum for the Democrats, allowing Clinton and Edwards to own the stage and highlight their more far-reaching plans.

While matching Edwards in liberal appeal, Clinton was painstaking in her efforts to come up with something aimed at avoiding the vicious opposition from business interests that bedeviled her as first lady — and threatened to bedevil her again in a general election campaign. Her newfound savvy in handling those interests is the biggest boon to her White House ambitions.

For insurance companies, there are carrots and sticks in the new Clinton plan. They will not mind her call to require all Americans to purchase medical coverage; no industry would oppose having the federal government mandate purchases of its product. And her plan would mean that millions of healthy citizens, particularly young adults who are not currently buying coverage, would be paying premiums but probably not filing many claims. That would be a huge boost to company profits.

The downside for insurance companies is that Clinton would force them to cover all who applied, regardless of their medical conditions. The insurance lobby is destined to oppose that mandate intensely. But still, for insurers Clinton’s new plan is certainly more palatable than her old one, which would have threatened the livelihood of many private insurance companies. In 1993, the Health Insurance Association of America launched a withering television advertising campaign in which actors playing a married couple, “Harry and Louise,” complained harshly about the Clinton proposals. This time Clinton is hoping to keep Harry and Louise to a low grumble, if not out of the picture entirely.

While doing her best to keep insurance executives at bay, Clinton went out of her way in this new plan to please another group that proved crucial in her defeat in the 1990s: small-business owners. Clinton personally briefed their Republican-leaning lobbying arm, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, as part of a months-long series of small group meetings she has held with business leaders on health issues. NFIB spokesman Michael Donohue told The Wall Street Journal that the senator’s plan “specifically looks to help small-business owners, and that’s a good thing.”

The key to winning over small business is that Clinton would now require individuals to buy their insurance; the plan she wrote for the Bill Clinton administration would have compelled all employers, big and small, to provide insurance for their workers. Now, as an added sweetener for the little guy, she would give a tax credit to those small businesses that already provide insurance. Her old proposal included big fines for small businesses failing to cover their employees.

Clinton seems to have learned the hard way that revamping the health care system won’t happen without some support from the business community to combat the fierce opposition of doctors, hospitals and other providers of medical care. And she’s made plain that she now understands it is more politically feasible to leave room for Congress to fill in the details undergirding a big presidential initiative than for a president to try to dictate every clause and comma.

Perhaps the best thing for Clinton in her new approach is that it could go a long way toward dumping the heavy baggage of her first effort. At least this one weighs less on paper.

Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.