Democrats to Put Spotlight on Health Care

Congressional Democrats announced plans Friday to launch a grass-roots campaign next week to elevate health care reform on the national agenda, thus ensuring the issue a prominent spot in the 1992 presidential campaign.

Galvanized by last month’s election of Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Pa.), who made health care reform a centerpiece of his campaign, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and eight other Senate Democrats will hold public hearings in five cities next week to underscore the need for reform.

“We cannot--we must not--sit back and wait for a consensus to emerge on how to solve this crisis,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell, House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and other Democratic congressional leaders criticized the Bush Administration for not advancing “any significant proposals” to cope with rising health care costs or to assist the growing number of Americans who have little or no medical insurance coverage.

In addition to next week’s hearings--to be held in Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Denver and Tampa, Fla.--more than 200 Democratic House members are planning to hold town hall meetings in their own districts on Jan. 14 to discuss health care reform, Foley said.

The issue is also to be debated Dec. 19 in New Hampshire by the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.), a leading Democratic voice on health matters who will be the moderator.

But even as the Democrats are escalating the health care debate, the Administration has been moving quietly to steal some of their thunder.

Later this month, perhaps the day before the New Hampshire forum, a high-level White House advisory group is to present its long-awaited recommendations for health care reform. The package is likely to call for increased medical care for children through a new system of school-based clinics.

“There will be a two-sided debate,” vowed Deborah L. Steelman, who heads the advisory panel and was President Bush’s domestic policy director during the 1988 campaign.

A recent Steelman memo, sent to the White House, reflects the increasing sense of alarm among many Republicans that the Administration has virtually ceded the playing field to the Democrats on the health care issue.

“It is the only important domestic issue where there isn’t something Republicans can point to,” wrote Steelman. “It is easy to gain ground against an unprepared and silent foe.”

In an interview, Steelman said the memo contains her own views and not those of the advisory council.

In her memo, Steelman urged the Administration to counter the arguments of those who favor national health insurance or a system under which employers would be required either to offer health insurance or to pay a special tax that would be used by the government to buy insurance for those who cannot get employment-based coverage.

Such proposals, Steelman contended, would “limit choice by requiring everyone to have the same benefit package; would put the government in charge of setting fees and deciding what services should be offered; would increase hassle; would increase taxes; would not, in fact, reduce health care costs.”

Rather, Steelman wrote, “concepts to consider supporting” include reducing medical malpractice costs, making health insurance more affordable for small businesses, reducing administrative costs and expanding prenatal and preventive care programs.