First Lady Vows an Antidote for Ills Told in Anecdotes : Health: Hillary Clinton listens to uninsured parent and small-business owner in Maryland. She says it is ‘absolutely wrong’ for workers to lack coverage.

Over coffee and baklava at a waterfront diner, Osmer Locklear told Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday how he rushed his daughter to the hospital with tonsillitis and now can’t afford to pay the bill.

Locklear, a house painter with two children, told Mrs. Clinton he has been paying $20 a week for three months on the $500 emergency room bill because he can’t afford health insurance for his family. Mortgage and car payments and food costs eat up the $400 he earns each week.

“Here’s a man who’s working, and he wants to take care of his family, and his only access to health care is through the emergency room,” the First Lady said.

People who work and try to provide for a family are penalized by the current health care system, she said, noting that someone like Locklear could go on welfare and receive medical coverage for his family.

“It’s absolutely wrong,” she said of a health care system that rewards welfare recipients over people who work. “We have to remove the incentive for people to stay on welfare just to get health care.”

Mrs. Clinton met with about a dozen residents and with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke at Jimmy’s Restaurant in the city’s Fell’s Point section to discuss how the nation’s health care system should be reformed.

A banner reading “Welcome to Fell’s Point, Hillary” hung from a store window, and about 300 people gathered outside the restaurant to cheer her.

Mrs. Clinton said that the Locklear family illustrates why the health care reform task force she heads hopes that by this time next year a comprehensive benefits plan will be available for every American.

She said the task force remains on track to present its proposals by mid-June.

“We will have universal coverage,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It’s a question of how soon.”

Gia Blattermann, who owns two hair salons, told the First Lady that about 75% of her 45 employees can’t pay for health insurance, and she can’t afford to subsidize their premiums.

The 25% who are insured earn between $25,000 and $30,000 annually and pay about $240 a month for individual coverage and up to $550 each month for family coverage.

“We can’t play Russian roulette with our lives. We need your help,” Blattermann said.

Mrs. Clinton said too many Americans are forced to postpone treatment until they are seriously ill and that the system needs to cover preventive care, such as mammograms and Pap smears.

The system “doesn’t educate people to be responsible. . . . Just wait until you get really sick and someone will take care of you,” the First Lady said. “That’s so backwards.”