Health Plan Gets Mixed Reviews : Reaction: Valley residents find positive and negative aspects in President’s proposal for reform. Many say he didn’t provide the details.

At 6 o’clock Wednesday, a wary, and sometimes weary, San Fernando Valley tuned in.

From a bar on Burbank Boulevard to a housing project for the elderly in Lake View Terrace, television viewers switched from the usual romance, canned laughter and sports cheers to watch their president talk health care reform.

And, like another communal audience listening to another president 32 years ago, they grappled with the tension between two questions: “What can my country do for me?” and “What can I do for my country?”

This, though, was a more skeptical and demanding audience than John Kennedy had.

Almost everyone, from small business owners to the grievously ill to the doctors who treat them, found something they liked, and something they didn’t in President Clinton’s proposal. But not many thought their president had told them exactly what was in it for them.

“He doesn’t answer the important questions,” protested Jeff Moon, a 33-year-old small-business owner from Panorama City 45 minutes into Clinton’s hourlong speech. “What’s this going to cost us and who’s going to pay for it?”

Moon was sharing the moment with the half-dozen regulars at Ireland’s 32, a bar in Van Nuys. They hadn’t planned to interrupt their usual Wednesday darts competition until a reporter showed up, but they obligingly turned both sets to the maximum volume and quickly got into the spirit. They cheered whenever Hillary Clinton was shown and hooted over the president’s new haircut.

“What’s this about, anyway?” one yelled only minutes into the speech. Bartender Tommy Shanahan had the answer: “It’s about why it’s cheaper to go to Forest Lawn than it is to go to the hospital.”

A more attentive crowd at Budlong Manor in Lake View Terrace--a HUD-subsidized apartment complex for the elderly and disabled--frequently broke out in applause and loud “Amens.” Most of the 66 residents in the building, where rents average $150 a month, live on $603 monthly Social Security checks and have their health costs covered by Medicare or Medicaid.

To them, any boost in either is good news.

“I like it. Yes I do,” said 67-year-old Beatrice Moore, a retired barber. “It would give everybody a chance. So what if we have to put out a little more for it? We would probably waste it on something else anyway.”

Gabriel Jimenez, a 65-year-old retired printer, agreed with that, but objected to the concept of “universal” care: “I believe every citizen of the United States should have health care, but illegal aliens shouldn’t.”

Nonetheless, Jimenez--who has diabetes, high blood pressure and a bad heart--welcomed the idea of Medicare covering the cost of more medicine.

“I’m telling you, at one time I was paying $600 a month in prescriptions,” he said.

In general, the elderly seemed optimistic about the plan.

“I’m real pleased,” said Ann Miller, 73, national secretary of the American Assn. of Retired Persons. “Much of the plan is positive, especially the provisions on long-term and community-based care. He’s going to cover prescription drugs for Medicare recipients and basic coverage for early retirees, people under 65.”

However, Miller, who watched the speech at her home in North Hollywood, was worried about plans to cap increases in Medicare funding in the future and use the savings to underwrite the universal care plan.

“Having large cuts in Medicare is a matter of concern,” Miller said. “We want to do our share, but want it to be a fair share.”

Clinton’s proposals brought sheer joy to Shannon Hart of Sherman Oaks. “This was made with me in mind,” Hart said.

Struck at age 12 by acute arthritis, Hart, who will turn 28 in a week, has had her knees replaced with steel prostheses twice and her hips replaced three times--most recently in December.

Hart works for a consulting firm that employs five people. “They don’t have money to offer health insurance,” she said. “The ironic thing is, we are health care consultants.”

And Hart just received word that she would be laid off Oct. 15.

“So I’m unemployed, uninsured, with a pre-existing condition,” she said. “It sounds so pathetic.”

And, to top it off, she broke her femur two months ago and now sports an internal cast, crutches and more debt. The bill from the hospital so far is $33,000.

“I think I have $600 in my savings account,” she said. “What I’ll have to do is file for bankruptcy.”

Under Clinton’s plan, she believes, she would be able to afford insurance, and would be able to choose the best plan and the best doctors for her.

Less impressed were Pat and Rae Sturgeon, who have owned Granada Hills Hardware for 18 years.

“I just don’t know,” Rae Sturgeon said. “It sounded good, but there were no answers on how they were going to pay for it. He mentioned small businesses getting a subsidy. How’s he going to pay for it?”

The Sturgeons have six employees and offered all of them insurance but the insurer turned down three. They fear they’ll have to pay for those employees no matter what the cost.

“I think (Clinton’s proposed) health insurance will be too much. It’s just too high,” she said.

Even in the corporate board room at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, the television went on during the monthly executive committee meeting.

“It was an excellent sales pitch,” said the chief of staff, Dr. Luigi Gentile.

A couple of the doctors applauded when Clinton leveled his attack against the bureaucracy and paperwork in health care. But they weren’t all overwhelmed with optimism. “It may mean shifting from one pile of paperwork to another,” said Dr. H. Lee Kagan, chairman of the medical committee.

And Dr. Richard Natale, immediate past chief of staff, wasn’t buying Clinton’s praise for the European countries’ health systems.

“American people have to realize they have rationing in Europe. We’ll be going from a high quality of care to mediocre medicine,” he said. “That’s the only way to cut the costs.”

But at a place where the president’s speech should have counted for much, some lacked the time and others the interest to listen. At Olive View Medical Center--a busy public hospital where many patients are uninsured--70 people in the emergency room waiting area talked, read, minded the kids or slumped in their chairs.

One television was tuned to “COPs” and the other to a Spanish-language news station that was not showing the speech live.

Not even the staff was watching.

“It’s just too busy,” said Earl Jones, nursing administrator. “I have a TV in my office. . . . But I haven’t caught much of what he’s saying. You don’t get much conversation here. Our workload is so great we don’t have time to be watching TV. We’re just too stressed out. There’s just too much to do.”

One woman who has neither medical insurance nor Medi-Cal benefits watched a news synopsis of the speech on a Spanish-language station while she waited to see a doctor.

“I’ll have to go home and find out what it is all about,” she said. “It’s very important.”

Times staff writers Jack Cheevers, Henry Chu, Aaron Curtiss, John Glionna, H. G. Reza and Timothy Williams and special correspondents Ed Bond, David Brady, Rebecca Bryant and Geoffrey Mohan contributed to this story.