Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 21, 1993 TAG: 9309210181
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Clinton also got a strong boost from Dr. C. Everett Koop, the surgeon general under Republican former Presidents Reagan and Bush, who said Clinton had already accomplished more to solve the nation's health woes "than all of his living predecessors put together."
But questions remained about the costs and cuts imbedded in Clinton's $700 billion plan to ensure health coverage for all Americans while slamming the brakes on medical inflation.
And Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour exhorted state GOP leaders to take the offensive against the Clinton plan. He said in a memo that Republicans cannot afford to "sit on our hands while the Clintons try to pull the wool over the country's eyes."
White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers left open the possibility Clinton may deliver Wednesday night's address to a joint session of Congress without making final decisions on how to pay for the program.
She said the president wants to raise $105 billion by increasing "sin taxes," but has not determined how much to raise cigarette taxes and whether to hit other items such as alcohol.
And the White House was still smarting from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan's barb Sunday that Clinton's projected $238 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings over five years was "a fantasy."
"It doesn't help," said Myers.
Clinton adviser Ira Magaziner told the National Association of Manufacturers that the president was considering a premium surcharge of "somewhat less than 1 percent" on businesses to help support medical research and teaching hospitals.
Magaziner also said it would cost the government just $4.5 billion to $5 billion a year to subsidize health coverage for early retirees. Clinton wants to have the government pick up most of the health tab for workers who retire at age 55.
Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell said the White House had produced "a serious, credible plan. The numbers are accurate. The question now before us is whether or not we can enact it into law following an extensive and bipartisan consultation."
"There will undoubtedly be some changes made," said the Maine Democrat, standing beside Hillary Rodham Clinton and a phalanx of lawmakers.
The president called it "an astonishing thing" that hundreds of lawmakers signed up for "Health Care University" briefings Monday and today with the first lady, who led his health-care task force, and the rest of his health advisers.
"I have never seen anything like it," the president told 100 doctors in the East Room, including two of his family physicians from Arkansas. He declared that the members of Congress were "hungering to learn, wanting to avoid making an irresponsible decision."
by CNB