Business Group Seeks Changes in Health Plan

The National Assn. of Manufacturers, a key business group whose support the White House has courted actively, Wednesday urged President Clinton to “dramatically” scale back his proposed health care program by offering fewer basic benefits initially and adding other benefits as the nation can afford them.

The White House expressed disappointment at the reaction of the influential organization. Clinton deliberately included in his health plan a proposal for providing government subsidies for some big businesses in a bid for their support.

The association’s president, Jerry Jasinowski, said Clinton should strip several components, including long-term care, prescription drugs for the elderly and mental health coverage, from the program’s basic benefits package, to be added “when and if it becomes clear we can pay for them.”

The President’s plan is “too large and ambitious by half” and “must be dramatically scaled back,” Jasinowski said, after polling the directors of the association.

The manufacturers association, in a statement released Wednesday, praised Clinton for tackling the health care issue but criticized the bureaucracy associated with proposed health care alliances--huge insurance-purchasing cooperatives--that the President’s plan would establish.

More than 80% of the association’s directors said firms of 500 employees or more should be allowed to opt out of the government-sponsored alliances and manage health plans of their own. The President has set the figure at 5,000 employees, which would put 71% of U.S. workers in the public health alliances, according to the association.

Many large companies, including many of the association’s members, already have programs to cut health care expenses for their workers. The companies say that they are concerned about the prospect of new government regulation of those programs and that they believe they can operate them more efficiently.

An assistant vice president of the manufacturers association, Sharon Kanner, said the organization will push the Administration to make broad changes to the plan after it is sent to Congress.

White House spokesman Jeff Eller said many of the association’s complaints are about elements of the program that are not negotiable.

“Comprehensive health benefits for everyone is the first principle of reform,” he said. “It’s just not something we’re going to back down on.”

Eller noted that many of the group’s biggest member companies, including the nation’s largest automobile and steel manufacturers, are solidly behind the President’s health care proposal.