Gore Asks AMA to Back Health Reform : Medicine: The vice president says the plan will include efforts to curb paperwork, malpractice litigation and regulations.

Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday urged a reluctant American Medical Assn., the nation’s largest doctors’ group, to support the Clinton Administration on health care reform, but he indicated that the White House will proceed even without the association’s backing.

In the Administration’s first formal address on the issue, Gore also disclosed that the President’s agenda will contain proposals long sought by doctors: tort reforms to eliminate unjustified malpractice litigation and an end to the “nightmare” of paperwork and government regulations. The words drew hearty applause from the physicians.

Gore’s speech was written for Hillary Rodham Clinton but Gore delivered it because the First Lady was still in Little Rock, Ark., with her seriously ill father.

Although the message was softened with praise for doctors as “the backbone of our system,” the speech left no doubt that the Administration is undaunted by the AMA’s vehement opposition to any government price controls on doctors, hospitals and other health care providers.

“This Administration knows that we cannot and do not want to build a better health care system without the cooperation and leadership of the AMA,” Gore said. “But the days when one association--no matter how prestigious--can dominate the health reform debate are over, and they should be.”

Not surprisingly, AMA leaders afterward rejected all talk of government-imposed price controls.

Separately Wednesday, the White House announced that later this week it will release the names of the several hundred government employees and outside consultants who have been working to draft the reform package.

The move comes after an exchange of letters between White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum and the General Accounting Office, which had been examining the workings of the health care task force for several members of Congress.

The White House had been withholding the names to shield the participants from lobbyists and the press, spokesman Robert Boorstin said. But over time, that decision has become an increasingly tempting target for opponents and the pressure from Congress provided a relatively painless way of backing down.

Gore’s tough words to the AMA reflect in part the Administration’s growing realization that the nation’s doctors are hardly marching in lock step against change, with several key physicians groups already on the reform bandwagon, including the American College of Physicians, the Academy of Family Physicians and Physicians for a National Health Program, which together represent more than 160,000 doctors.

Still, the AMA remains by far the largest single organization, with membership of slightly less than 300,000--nearly half of all U.S. physicians. About 1,000 AMA members are in Washington this week to lobby Congress and the Administration and to make public their concerns.

Gore was ambiguous on cost controls, leaving it unclear whether Clinton will seek voluntary compliance from health care providers or congressional authorization to impose a mandatory wage and price freeze.

Gore said the reform agenda will ensure high quality medicine and give consumers an array of insurance plans from which to select, leaving them with a choice of doctors as well.

After the vice president’s speech, AMA officials agreed with the Administration that health care costs must be curtailed but said that they still strongly oppose mandatory controls. The AMA board is considering recommending some form of voluntary controls to members.

Dr. Raymond Scalettar, chairman of the AMA board of trustees, said mandatory price controls have been ineffective in the past and there is no reason to believe that they would work as part of national health care reform.

Scalettar also warned that price controls and other government regulations may cause doctors to leave the profession in droves.

“Medicine is a calling,” he said. “It’s an honor to be a physician. We have a lot of physicians who are working extraordinarily hard and it’s becoming more and more difficult for them.”

Dr. John L. Clowe, AMA president, agreed, saying that in recent months he has “run into a great many agitated, frightened, unhappy physicians.”

The officials said they believe that the medical profession has been attacked because of the high salaries earned by some physicians--criticism that they said is unfair and distorted. The public should also consider doctors’ long hours and the extent of their administrative burdens, they said.

Physicians work 48% longer hours than the rest of the population, said James Todd, AMA executive vice president.

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.