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

DATE: MONDAY, December 6, 1993                   TAG: 9312060065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS                                LENGTH: Medium

AMA REQUESTS RESTRAINT ON PLAN

Top officials of the American Medical Association appealed to doctors on Sunday to show restraint in criticizing President Clinton's plan to overhaul the nation's health-care system, even as members of the group vowed to seek major changes in the proposal.

At a meeting that displayed the group's divisions over tactics and strategy in the coming battle over the nation's health-care system, Dr. Joseph Painter, president of the association, said doctors should look for answers, not adversaries.

And Dr. James Todd, executive vice president of the association, said, "We want to make policy, not politics."

"We have everything to gain and, oh, so much to lose if we start drawing lines in the sand while the ship of reform is still at sea," Todd told more than 500 doctors gathered here for the semiannual meeting of the group's policy-making body, the House of Delegates.

But leaders of the doctors' organization found anxiety, frustration and discontent among the members. Several state delegations, including those from New York, Florida, Indiana, Virginia and Texas, said the AMA should re-examine its support of a federal law to require employers to provide health insurance for their employees.

President Clinton's plan, like an AMA policy adopted in 1990, endorses such a requirement, known as an employer mandate. But some doctors, echoing Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress, are now suggesting that may be unwise.

American Medical News, the weekly newspaper of the AMA, said this week that there was a serious split in the organization because "it represents an impossibly diverse membership with conflicting economic interests."

As a result, it said, the AMA and other medical societies have sent mixed signals to the White House and Congress. While endorsing President Clinton's goal of health insurance coverage for all Americans, the association has harshly criticized many of the proposed means to that end.

The trustees of the AMA on Sunday affirmed their desire to be "a constructive agent of change," working closely with Clinton.

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by CNB