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

DATE: FRIDAY, September 24, 1993                   TAG: 9309240177
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HEALTH CARE PITCH STARTS IN EARNEST

President Clinton and his Cabinet fanned out across the country Thursday to pitch the administration's massive health reform plan, as the White House confirmed that the president ruled out a tax on liquor to help fund the effort.

The only "sin" tax Clinton will seek is a new surcharge of 75 cents to $1 per pack of cigarettes. The last-minute decision not to include liquor prompted cheers from the liquor industry and grim determination from the tobacco lobby to fight the move.

"Tobacco is the only product that, if used as it is supposed to be used, leads to health problems," Hillary Rodham Clinton, the architect of the health reform policy, explained in an interview with Cable News Network. "You can't say that about alcohol. . . . We want to limit the growth of tobacco use among young people."

The only other tax currently in the Clinton reform plan is a "modest" assessment on the largest corporations that elect to run their own health plans. Taken together, the targeted taxes are projected to raise $105 billion of the $700 billion the White House says it will cost to achieve universal health insurance, improve the health benefits of Medicare beneficiaries and reform the nation's costly health system.

The White House "message control" strategy, pursued by Clinton and his staff so successfully in last year's election campaign, permeated the Capitol on Thursday as the war of the health care buzzwords began in earnest.

Opponents, on the defensive after Clinton's well-received speech to a joint session of Congress, cranked out press statements and blitzed talk shows with arguments that Clinton's health plan is too expensive, too intrusive or downright un-American.

The entire Clinton Cabinet winged off to points from Burlington, Vt., to Omaha, Neb. to sell the health-reform plan.

Clinton took his campaign before a nationally televised town meeting Thursday night in Tampa, Fla., where 1,000 people peppered him with polite questions about how his plan might affect their lives.

Jean Parker, a retired homemaker, said both her 85-year-old mother and 66-year-old husband have Alzheimer's disease and need long-term care. What will your program do for me? she asked.

"For people with Alzheimer's and other problems that require institutional care, we will continue to cover that. And we will cover it at least as good or better as now," Clinton said, adding his plan also will provide in-home care coverage, which he said is often less expensive than institutional care.

Other questions dealt with long-term care and mental health benefits, both of which would be phased in between 1996 and 2000 under Clinton's plan.

Keywords:
INFOLINE

by CNB