Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408120116
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
House Speaker Thomas Foley and Majority Leader Richard Gephardt emerged from a meeting Thursday night with White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and other top aides to Clinton and told reporters they could not begin debate next week on health care.
Instead, Foley and Gephardt said, the House would again concentrate next week on the crime bill, which suffered a dramatic 225-210 defeat Thursday on a parliamentary move.
The two leaders insisted the health care delay was solely caused by the fact that they are awaiting financial analyses of their bill and others from the Congressional Budget Office. But they could not say when those analyses would be done.
``We have to do this day by day, week by week,'' Gephardt said.
Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader George Mitchell said he still planned to call today for the first votes in the Senate on his 1,448-page health care reform package.
The White House announced after the crime bill vote that Clinton would meet with his Cabinet this morning and then dispatch key members of it to Capitol Hill to lobby on behalf of Mitchell's bill.
Even before the crime bill vote, many Democrats had conceded that Gephardt's health care bill with its higher taxes and requirements that employers help buy medical insurance for their workers did not have sufficient votes to pass.
Clinton called on lawmakers Thursday to skip their August recess to complete action on both crime and health care.
``I think they ought to stay and deal with both of them,'' Clinton said, adding that both concerns were ``not going to take a vacation.''
As Democratic leaders struggled over what to do next, a bipartisan group in the House offered a rival bill with no tax increase or employer mandates. But it falls far short of achieving universal coverage - even by President Clinton's newly broadened definition.
A sponsor, Rep. J. Roy Rowland, D-Ga., said it would approach ``90 percent or a little bit better'' coverage by 2004. That means 5 percent more Americans would be covered through the reforms than are already covered without them - and at least 26 million Americans would remain without insurance.
The bipartisan bill seeks to expand coverage through insurance reforms, subsidies for the poorest, an expansion of community health centers and tax changes. Authors said they estimated it would cost $140 billion over five years, and $340 billion over 10 years.
Subsidies for poor Americans would begin for those whose incomes put them at the poverty line and gradually would cover those with earnings up to twice the poverty level. Pregnant women and children whose income are as much as 240 percent of the poverty level would be eligible.
Supporters said the plan would be paid for largely by reducing the rate of growth of Medicare and Medicaid.
Democrats supporting Gephardt's bill ridiculed the bipartisan plan, giving it a mock report card with F's for universal coverage; cost containment; and help for the middle class, seniors and small business. Its only passing grade was a C-minus for insurance reforms.
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., called it ``all gums and no teeth when it comes to cost containment.''
``The big losers are the working middle class,'' said Rep. Mike Synar, D-Okla. It would leave uninsured ``the 30 million people that we started the process to try to cover.''
Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., said the bill is the most that can be passed this year.
``People clearly want reform but they want it done cautiously, they want it done carefully and they want it to the best of our ability to be done inexpensively and with a minimum of government intrusion,'' said Rep. Fred Grandy, R-Iowa.
Details of the bill, written primarily by Cooper; Rowland; Grandy; and Rep. Michael Bilirakis, R-Fla., came out after a morning of rumors about delays in the House debate.
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said of the delay, ``We get paid around here to make up our minds. The leadership gets paid extra - and they can't make up their minds.''
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said a delay ``is not going to help because we're running out of time.''
But Waxman added that ``a cooling-off period'' might convince some lawmakers that the Gephardt bill is ``the only chance to get something passed.''
The bipartisan bill would not require employers to pay their workers' insurance, but it would require them to offer at least two plans with a standard benefits package - one allowing unlimited choice of doctors and one with a high deductible.
by CNB