Clinton Will Take Health Care Campaign to the People : Reform: A promotional tour, book and video are intended to help the plan regain steam. Criticism from lawmakers has frustrated the White House.

The Administration plans to “relaunch” its health plan in two weeks when the proposal goes in final form to Congress--a tacit admission that it has lost some momentum since its unveiling last month.

The second kick-off probably will include campaign-style stops by President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton to “take the plan to the country,” as well as the release of a video and a book written in non-technical language, a senior White House aide said.

At the same time, the aide voiced the frustration felt by many in the White House over a steady drumbeat of congressional criticism about delays in submitting the plan in legislative form. The White House has followed a schedule agreed upon by congressional leaders before Clinton’s Sept. 22 health speech, the aide said--a point confirmed by some congressional aides.

“It puts us in a little bit of a bind when we did what we were asked and then were hit with questions about ‘Where is the legislation?’ ” the aide said.

As some members of Congress have complained in recent days about the delays, polls have shown that some Americans are doubtful a complete plan even exists. White House advisers, while downplaying those polls and insisting that Americans are firmly committed to the plan’s underlying principles, clearly hope that the “relaunch” will address those problems.

The senior aide said that the Administration proposed in August to submit the plan to Congress in skeletal form--as “legislative specs”--immediately after Clinton’s speech. But they were urged by senior members of both the House and Senate to take their time in developing the bill, the aide said.

These members said that the legislation was “too important and just too historic” to be sent to Congress in the outline version in which tax legislation is first sent to committee, the aide said.

Administration officials believed that a delayed introduction of the bill would allow Congress to begin its hearings with a general review of health care issues that could proceed without the bill, the aide said. Indeed, the White House flew in the governor of Hawaii at one point, expecting that he would soon be called to give testimony.

Instead, congressional committees were soon cross-examining Administration witnesses such as Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala on aspects of the plan and complaining about the slow pace of the drafting effort.

The hearings were “a little different than what we expected,” the senior White House aide said.

The aide said that it may have been a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to have testified on the first week after her husband announced the plan, because that appearance raised expectations about the pace of introduction that were not met.

Some of the loudest complaints about the delays have come from Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who warned this week that his panel would not be rushed by a late submission of the bill.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), joked that the plan had been lost for so long that soon its text would appear on milk containers with the question: “Have you seen this plan?”

Nonetheless, the senior White House aide insisted that there has been no loss of public commitment to the central principles of the plan. And if the bill-writing work has “slowed us down a little bit,” the aide said, it also has been helpful in allowing for some public comment that improved aspects of the plan.

The health plan is so central to Americans’ lives, the aide said, that it will be decided on its merits, rather than on whether it has received too much publicity.

The Administration also is taking steps to remain clear of a bitter dispute among congressional barons over which of five committees will have the most influence over the legislation.

Despite strong pressure from the committees, the White House has crafted the bill in a form intended to leave all jurisdictional issues to Congress. The Administration has decided to present the bill as a new proposed act, rather than as an amendment to existing law, for example, to avoid tipping it toward one committee.

“We are bending over backward to be as neutral as possible,” the aide said. “We expect the Congress to make the decisions about jurisdiction. . . . That’s not our task.”

With health care shaping up as the most important domestic program of the Clinton Administration, three committees in the House and two in the Senate are battling for the largest share of the program.

Their battle has already forced Mrs. Clinton to testify before five committees, rather than two as she had expected. And this week, in what was widely seen as a bid for jurisdiction, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) called on House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) to clarify the procedures that would be used to decide how the bill would be referred to committee.

An aide said that the promotional tour for the Administration’s plan would be “almost like a book tour.” But aides already have ruled out a bus tour--in the manner of the Clinton-Gore campaign for the White House--because such an event would require closing down highways and holding up traffic across vast stretches of the country.

Aides decided to issue a book because the drafts issued so far have clearly not satisfied the needs of average Americans for information. “It didn’t necessarily answer the questions people had--and raised other questions that were unnecessary,” the aide said. “We want the real plan out.”

The accompanying videotape is being prepared by the Democratic National Committee.

Times staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this story.