Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408040089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
``The questions now should shift to them,'' Clinton said, accusing 24 GOP senators of abandoning their support for universal coverage because of political pressure. ``Are we going to cover all Americans or not?''
Clinton's 50-minute news conference came as congressional committee hearings on the administration's handling of the Whitewater affair dragged late into the night. The inquiry loomed as a distraction to Clinton's effort to sell health care and the $33 billion crime bill before Congress.
The president predicted that the administration would be cleared of any wrongdoing. ``I welcome this investigation. And it will vindicate what I have been saying all along,'' he said. He said he saw no reason for his deputy treasury secretary, Roger Altman, to quit, even in the face of congressional questions about his candor.
For all Clinton's talk of universal coverage, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's health care plan is designed to cover 95 percent of Americans. Still, Clinton said he would sign it because he believed it could ultimately serve as a vehicle to universal coverage. He also plugged a House Democratic version closer to his original plan, but refused to say which of the two he preferred.
Public support for Clinton's proposal has fallen dramatically, and it was clear he wanted to cast the House and Senate Democratic plans as substantial improvements. Both would take more time to phase in dramatic reforms, offer consumers more choices and make coverage for small businesses more affordable.
``The plan I originally proposed has been changed and much of it for the better,'' he said.
In this year's State of the Union message, Clinton had made a dramatic threat to veto any measure that did not guarantee universal coverage. Wednesday, however, he said he recognized that Mitchell wrote his bill to adapt to the political realities of the Senate, and said he believed it would ultimately achieve universal coverage.
Speaking shortly after the president, Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., said Mitchell's proposal - although far less ambitious that the House bill - still had serious shortcomings and that the Republicans would offer a competing bill before week's end.
Dole said the Mitchell proposal includes too many taxes as well as health care mandates that should be scrapped. But Dole said he didn't rule out agreement on a health care compromise: ``We could still put a bill together. I don't think it's over.''
Even before Clinton spoke, Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour accused him of a ``Trojan Horse strategy,'' suggesting that Clinton would deem the Mitchell bill acceptable and then seek a far more liberal measure when the House and Senate have to reconcile their differences.
Adding a personal touch to his health care lobbying, Clinton introduced two men who came to Washington aboard the bus caravans that have been crisscrossing the country in support of universal coverage.
One of the men buried his wife two days ago, after she died of cancer that was left untreated for months because they had no coverage; the other lost an arm in a motorcycle accident and hasn't been able to get insurance.
``If the program works for John Cox and Daniel Lumley - then I will be for it,'' Clinton said as the men stood nearby.
The third evening news conference of the Clinton presidency came as his job approval rating has been sliding in the polls. From the outset he reminded the viewing public of his accomplishments.
In a defiant opening statement, Clinton said critics on both the right and left were dead wrong in predicting that his economic and trade policies would destroy the recovery, explode the deficit and throw millions of Americans out of work.
Rattling off accomplishments, Clinton said nearly 4 million jobs had been created during his tenure, the federal budget deficit was heading down for the third consecutive year, and taxes have been cut for millions of low-income families and small businesses.
``None of this came without a fight, and now we are involved in two more historic fights,'' Clinton said, referring to the crime bill and health care debates.
Although he said he would consult Congress prior to any invasion of Haiti, he pointedly refused to promise that he would seek advance congressional approval of such an action. The Senate had approved a nonbinding resolution earlier in the day telling him to get such approval. Clinton refused to offer any timetable for a decision, saying he hoped Haiti's military leaders would answer international demands that they step down.
Responding to the furor at congressional Whitewater hearings over Altman's truthfulness, ``I do not countenance anybody being less than forthright with the Congress.''
But he added, ``The Secretary of the Treasury [Lloyd Bentsen] has confidence in him and so do I, and I think he has now answered all questions the Senate could possibly have about an incident that involved no violation of the law and no violation of ethics.''
Clinton said he was not watching the hearings.
On other issues:
Clinton noted that nuclear talks with North Korea resume in Geneva next week. He said North Korea's ``fate is still in its own hands'' as it decides how to deal with Western demands that it end its nuclear weapons program.
A self-described lifelong baseball fan, Clinton said it would be heartbreaking if baseball players carry out their threatened strike, scheduled to begin Aug. 12. He said his administration would get involved ``if we can play a constructive role.''
Clinton also took time to prod Congress to act swiftly on the $33 billion crime bill, which he had hoped to sign back in May but which just recently emerged from a House-Senate conference committee. He urged Congress to ``put aside partisanship and think of the American people.''
by CNB