
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 17, 1993                   TAG: 9309170101
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

HEALTH WORRIES HEARD CLINTON SAYS REFORM NEEDED, WILL WORK

President Clinton on Thursday heard health-care horror stories from ordinary Americans - and health-financing fears from ordinary small-business owners - as the White House began selling the health plan the president will formally present to Congress on Wednesday.

Clinton, who said he wanted to put a "human face" on the nation's health-care problems, drew two dozen people to the Rose Garden, where they told wrenching tales of how they, their friends and relatives have been denied insurance coverage, or had seen it lost or limited. Solving those problems, he said, would take sacrifice by some.

"I don't want to pretend that this all going to be easy," he said, adding that to fix the system, some firms and some individuals will end up paying more or getting less in health coverage than they now do. But he pledged that in the long run, the reward would be a health-care system taking less out of the economy and a population with guaranteed health care.

Daryl Routzahn, whose Maryland family owns retail businesses, was blunt: "We cannot finance your proposed 7.9 percent payroll tax on the backs of small business without job loss. . . . Eliminating jobs and tripling my costs will not work in today's economy."

The Clinton draft proposal requires all employers to pay at least 80 percent of the cost of a basic benefits package for each worker; the cost to the business could not exceed 7.9 percent of the firm's payroll. Businesses with fewer than 50 workers would have costs capped at 3.5 percent of payroll and would receive some subsidy.

Keywords:
INFOLINE

by CNB