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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994                   TAG: 9402230082
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HEALTH-CARE AD BATTLE HITS HOME

The debate over national health care reform, which will pick up steam in the halls of Congress during the next few weeks, also may be heating up in the Roanoke and New River valleys.

Newspaper and radio advertisements - sponsored by a coalition of 60 million labor, business and health professionals - will begin to pour into the Roanoke market as two key congressional committees begin work on at least six different health reform bills.

The ads will ask Roanoke and New River Valley consumers to join the debate by contacting Reps. L.F. Payne and Rick Boucher. An ad that begins running today in the Roanoke Times & World-News will list their phone numbers.

The ads come in response to a $14 million advertising campaign waged by the Health Insurance Association of America, which attacks the Clinton health plan in a series of television, radio and print ads. The coalition, called the Health Care Reform Project, will spend $500,000 during the next several weeks, and ultimately several million dollars defending Clinton's proposal.

Insurance companies have attacked Clinton's plan - which would provide health care to all Americans through regional alliances of doctors, hospitals and other health professionals - for reducing consumer choice and creating another government agency.

The coalition's ads imply that the health insurance companies reduce choice by controlling the cost of health insurance and the kinds of care that are covered. They stress the need for a plan that provides affordable health care to all that can never be taken away.

"We must not have families out there today choosing between putting food on the table or getting health care," said Sandra Ryalls, a Roanoke Health Department nurse who was speaking on behalf of the Virginia Nurses Association. Ryalls was one of four coalition representatives who spoke at a news conference announcing the ads.

John Wanchek, a regional spokesman for the consumer group Families USA, said newspaper and radio advertisements would circulate in Roanoke and 27 other cities across the country, while television ads would air only in Washington, D.C.

The Roanoke market was chosen for inclusion in the campaign because Payne and Boucher serve on congressional committees that are in the process of reviewing several health reform proposals, Wanchek said.

Boucher, D-Abingdon, is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He has not taken a public position on any of the reform bills under consideration.

Payne, D-Nelson County, is on the House Ways and Means Committee and has co-sponsored a bill many are calling "Clinton Lite." The coalition rejects that proposal because it fails to guarantee health coverage for all Americans.

The coalition will support any proposal that guarantees coverage, provides comprehensive benefits, requires employers to help pay for insurance and contains costs, Wanchek said. Of the proposals submitted to Congress, only Clinton's bill and a proposal for a government-run insurance system meet all four of the coalition's criteria.

Richard Coorsh, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Health Insurance Association of America, said insurance companies want most of the same things. The association would support the Clinton plan if it made participation in health alliances voluntary and removed price controls, he said.

by CNB