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

DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994                   TAG: 9407120071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

CARE FOR ALL VOWED

Meanwhile, Democrats in a divided House committee won approval of help for small business - at the expense of tobacco taxes. And members of the Senate Finance Committee, which many see as the most likely to produce a bill that can win final passage, continued to meet behind closed doors.

``There is no universal and there is no comprehensive coverage, unless all Americans are assured that as of a certain date they are going to have coverage,'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

At the same time, Democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee closed ranks to win approval, 24-14, on a compromise bill that would:

Create a credit of up to 50 percent for businesses with 25 or fewer employees and wages averaging $26,000 or less.

Create a credit of up to 37.5 percent for firms with 26 to 50 workers and low average wages.

Phase in a 45-cent increase in the tobacco tax, now 24 cents a pack, over five years, down from a proposed 60-cent increase. Clinton had asked for 75 cents.

Cut a new 2 percent tax on health insurance premiums to 1 percent.

Delay by three years, until 2000, the start of a new long-term care program for the severely disabled.

Kennedy and Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; Paul Wellstone, D-Minn.; and Bob Graham, D-Fla., said that if Congress settles for incremental health reform, America's middle class will be hit hard.

Daschle said a health reform bill like that of Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., and Sen. John Breaux, D-La., which includes insurance reforms but does not require employers to buy insurance, would cover about 10 million low-income people.

He said, however, that there would be no change at all for ``the heart of the middle class.''