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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 15, 1994                   TAG: 9404150083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

LOW-PAID, FEMALE WORKERS WILL LOSE JOBS WITH PLAN, STUDY SAYS

The Clinton health plan could cost 849,000 to 3.8 million Americans their jobs, most of them women making less than $10,000 a year, according to a study sponsored by a small-business federation that opposes it.

``The very smallest firms and ... the low-pay jobs are the first to go,'' asserted Jack Faris, president of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen scoffed at the job-loss figures. ``I don't think that's going to happen. I think there'll be some shifting of jobs,'' he told reporters at the White House.

Erskine Bowles, head of the Small Business Administration, said two-thirds of the federation's 600,000 business members already cover their workers, and most of the rest would like to. Small businesses get ``a raw deal'' in the current insurance market that the Clinton plan would remedy, Bowles argued.

And three dozen corporations, health, labor and senior groups urged Congress to support a requirement that employers help pay for insurance as ``the most practical and realistic approach'' to universal coverage.

Clinton would require employers to pay 80 percent of their workers' insurance costs.

The Consad Research Co. of Pittsburgh, in a $110,000 study backed by the federation and the Healthcare Equity Action League, said the requirement would wipe out 849,000 jobs, many of them in the service industry, even with Clinton's promised subsidies for small business.

Faris said those laid off would be ``disproportionately female workers, making less than $10,000 a year and trying to support a family.''

The study said the business subsidies would cost $81 billion in the first year, or $53 billion more than the White House estimated. If the government failed to come through with the subsidies, more than 3.8 million jobs could be lost, it estimated.

Other outside analysts have come up with different estimates, some higher and some lower, of the impact that requiring employers to pay for insurance would have on jobs. Economists generally agree that consumers would bear the cost in higher prices or lower wages.

Democrats in Congress are looking for ways to soften the blow for small businesses. Clinton would offer sliding-scale subsidies to firms with 75 or fewer workers and average wages under $24,000; some would pay as little as 3.5 percent of payroll for health coverage, compared to 7.9 percent for most firms.

Bentsen welcomed a report that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated a rival health bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., would cost $150 billion more between 1995 and 2000 than its authors calculated.

Groups backing an employer mandate included the corporate parent of American Airlines, the Archer Daniels Midland Co., Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co., the American Association of Retired Persons and Safeway Inc.

by CNB