Clinton Defends Health Care Plan : Democrats: He spurns Bush’s criticism that the proposal would force millions of Americans into an inefficient system.

Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton renewed his attack on President Bush’s handling of domestic issues Sunday, a move inspired by the Republican incumbent’s criticism of Clinton’s health care plan.

In an impromptu question-and-answer session outside the governor’s mansion as he returned from church, the Arkansas governor scorned Bush’s directives on health care and said his criticism of Clinton’s proposals rang hollow.

“I find that unbelievable after this Administration and the one before it have presided over the biggest explosion of health care costs in the history of this country,” Clinton told reporters.

“They don’t have any credibility on the health care issue.”

Bush, campaigning in the Chicago area, said Clinton’s health care plan would cause a loss of 700,000 jobs and would dump 52 million Americans into an inefficient government-run health care system.

Not so, said Clinton, countering that the spiraling cost of health care under a second Bush term would prevent the solving of any of the nation’s pressing financial problems.

“We have got millions of Americans terrified of losing their health care, others who don’t have health care coverage, others who can’t change jobs (lest they lose their insurance),” Clinton said. “And once again the Administration is trying to raise fears instead of solve problems.”

Health care has been a key component of Clinton’s “putting-people-first” plan for the nation’s future and has represented a major point of attack against Bush. An estimated 37 million Americans have no medical insurance.

The Democratic nominee mentions his health care plan--in very general terms--before almost every audience to which he speaks, and his promise to refer a health care plan to Congress within the first 100 days of his Administration always draws enthusiastic cheers.

So far, Clinton has detailed only the bare skeleton of his own plan, which falls into the “play-or-pay” approach favored by Senate Democrats. It would require employers to either provide insurance or pay into a fund through which insurance would be distributed to uncovered workers.

Clinton says that in the first year, he would move to streamline the nation’s 1,500 private insurers into a system whereby insurers and government programs, like Medicare, would pay doctors by a single set of rules. That, he says, would lessen the expensive paperwork demands on insurers, hospitals and doctors.

Basic benefits would be established by a federal review board, and the government would also set budgetary targets for doctors and develop what Clinton has called “strong incentives” to limit spending on unnecessary technology.

Clinton has acknowledged that his plan would result in a loss of jobs at insurance firms. But he has not put a number to the job loss and contends that benefits of a health care program would overshadow any temporary displacement.

The Arkansas governor has denied Bush’s other major criticism, that the plan would force millions of Americans into an inefficient system. In a July 20 rally outside of a Columbus, Ohio, insurance company, Clinton said that his plan was “not for the government to take over health care, but for government to organize it.”

The Bush criticism of Clinton’s health care plan ushered in yet another contentious day for the presidential candidates, who sparred repeatedly last week over foreign policy, the Gulf War, taxes and welfare reform.

Clinton acknowledged on Sunday that he expects the campaign to become more of a slugfest as the election, now 93 days away, nears.

After attending church Sunday, Clinton planned to spend much of the rest of the day drawing up a state budget plan, and to continue to work on that today.

He is due to return to campaigning full time on Wednesday when he and running mate Al Gore begin a three-day bus trip that winds from St. Louis up the Mississippi River Valley to Minneapolis.

The trip was originally scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but was postponed a day to allow Clinton to attend the Washington funeral of his friend and deputy finance co-chairman, attorney C. Victor Raiser. Raiser and his son were killed Thursday in an Alaska plane crash.