Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 21, 1994 TAG: 9405230164
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER Note: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ Former presidential candidate Paul Tsongas predicts Congress will pass a health care reform bill this fall - but it probably won't look much like what President Clinton has proposed.
"The fact is, nobody has any idea what this will look like," Tsongas told a group of Lewis-Gale Hospital employees Friday in Salem.
But Tsongas - a Democrat who's speaking around the country these days on behalf of a Washington-based group that favors free-market solutions to health care problems - ventured a guess.
He's betting that political factors will force both Democrats and Republicans to compromise with what he calls a "bare-bones" health care plan that will make health insurance "portable" from one job to the next and will require companies to cover pre-existing conditions.
But Tsongas predicts that Congress eventually will drop the most controversial aspects of the Clinton proposal - such as mandatory health alliances and other high-profile government regulation.
And he's guessing that whatever health care reform bill emerges from Congress won't provide for universal coverage, either.
Clinton has pledged to veto any health care bill that doesn't cover everyone.
"Frankly, I don't take the veto threat seriously," Tsongas told more than 100 doctors, nurses and other Lewis-Gale workers who crowded into the hospital's auditorium.
Clinton will be forced to accept whatever Congress passes, Tsongas said. The mid-term elections this fall likely will see Republicans increase their numbers in both houses of Congress. Plus, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, whom Clinton is counting on to shepherd the health care plan, is retiring.
So the president can't wait until next year to get what he wants, Tsongas said. "By '95, there'll be more Republicans in the House and Senate and George Mitchell probably will be baseball commissioner."
Democrats must force through a health care bill "to show they can run the country," Tsongas said. Yet at the same time, he said, Republicans are inclined to seek a compromise "to demonstrate they are not genetically obstructionists."
Lecturing in crowded hospital auditoriums isn't quite how Tsongas had hoped to be spending his time these days. In 1992 the former Massachusetts senator sought his party's nomination for president - and for a time emerged as Clinton's strongest, and perhaps most unlikely, opponent.
Tsongas' brand of liberalism is difficult to pigeonhole on a traditional political spectrum. In some ways, he's to Clinton's left. But Tsongas' emphasis on debt reduction and free-market solutions to health care defies conventional liberal thinking.
And those are the two issues he's spending most of his time talking about now. He's teamed up with former Republican Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire to found the Concord Coalition, a group dedicated to cutting the national debt. (Two other ex-politicians from different sides of the aisle - former Republican Rep. Caldwell Butler and former Democratic Rep. Jim Olin - recently set up a Roanoke chapter.)
Tsongas also is traveling the country speaking on behalf of the Healthcare Leadership Council, a group of health-care companies that support "market-based reform." Among the council's members is Lewis-Gale Hospital, which brought Tsongas to town Friday to share his insights on health care reform.
The main area where Tsongas and most free-market advocates differ is employer mandates - and whether businesses should be forced to provide health care coverage for employees. They say no; Tsongas says yes. "Without it," he said, "you don't have a system."
He acknowledges that mandates will be a burden for some businesses. But he says not having mandates already is a burden for others.
Take a hypothetical couple, he said. "One spouse works for General Motors, and GM provides full family coverage. The other spouse works for Wal-Mart, which provides no coverage. In effect, GM is subsidizing Wal-Mart."
by CNB