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Hillary Clinton, once President Barack Obamas political foe, emerged as his top ally on what would become his signature policy achievement: revamping the U.S. health-care system.

She quietly advised administration officials and lawmakers uneasy after a summer of attacks by the small-government Tea Party movement, according to the book HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton. (Crown, 440 pages, $26.)

A member or two may have stopped and asked me what I thought, Clinton is quoted in the book as saying. And I thought, You need to work with the president and try to get this done.

HRC, by Bloomberg News reporter Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes of The Hill newspaper, is the first book-length account after Clintons tenure as secretary of state to explore her political comeback after losing her 2008 presidential bid to fellow Democrat Obama. The reported narrative, to be published today, gives new details about her reaction to the killings of four Americans at a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and her plans for a possible 2016 presidential run.

Sitting to the right of Obama at a Sept. 10, 2009, cabinet meeting, Clinton listened with alarm as other secretaries asked whether health-care legislation was worth sacrificing much of the rest of the presidents agenda, the book says. This is the time to do it, Clinton says in a pep talk the authors recount in the book. Were all in it. Everyone in this room knows how important this is.

Her own experience with pushing for a health-care revamp informed her advice to senior Obama administration officials and lawmakers, the authors write. In 1994, during President Bill Clintons first term, the first lady lost a fight to change the countrys health-insurance system.

I thought, Look, the president had more support in Congress than my husband did back in 93, 94, so he could put together a majority, Clinton says in the book. If the Republicans stonewalled, which they were beginning to show they would, despite his best efforts, he could still put a package on the floor and get it passed in both houses, which doesnt come along every first term of a president.

Obama signed the Affordable Care Act -- dubbed Obamacare -- into law March 23, 2010. Democrats are still experiencing repercussions; the issue cost them the House of Representatives in 2010 and has returned as a dominant theme of this years congressional races. Republicans are positioned to retain the House and need a net of six seats to take the Senate.

The book also traces Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lews path through Obamas administration. In a twist, the former Citigroup (C) Inc. executive began in the State Department in 2009 after Obamas then-chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, objected to installing him at the Treasury Department.

Emanuel was worried that it wouldnt look good to put a Citigroup executive in that job in the midst of a Wall Street bailout, the book says.

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Hillary Clinton Emerged as Top Obama Ally on Health: Book