Legislation to Enact Health Plan Is Ready

More than three weeks after President Clinton’s health care plan was unveiled on Capitol Hill, the legislation that would enact it is about to be introduced--perhaps as early as today, Clinton Administration and congressional officials said Thursday.

Much of the delay can be blamed on turf battles among powerful committee chairmen in both the House and the Senate who are asserting that the bulk of the bill falls within their jurisdictions.

At the same time, however, the legislation has undergone numerous “technical corrections” that are of concern to some lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The most controversial change is one that would reduce mental health and drug rehabilitation benefits.

Under the change, those who choose a high-cost health plan could have to pay a deductible of one day’s costs and as much as 50% of the remaining costs of their treatment after 60 days--double the amount in the original legislation.

House Government Operations Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) canceled a committee meeting Thursday at which his panel was supposed to authorize the budget for the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, headed by Director Lee P. Brown.

Conyers said that the benefit cutbacks, which were reported Thursday by the Washington Post, could make the drug policy operation a “hollow office. . . . We’re not going any farther (unless) we’re going to have a drug czar dealing with the important questions of drug abuse and alcohol treatment.”

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on health and the environment, said that the changes in substance abuse and mental health benefits are “very disappointing. . . . I guess the Administration is backing away from their original proposals because of cost, but it also means we’re stepping back from where we’d like to be.”

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Six senators also have protested the changes, writing in a letter to White House health adviser Ira Magaziner: “We know that the idea behind the inclusion of mental health and substance abuse benefits is a good one. We fear, however, that the amended plan encourages treatment that may not be in the best interest of the patient and does it by artificially manipulating the patient’s cost of obtaining care.”

The senators, who represent both parties and a broad ideological spectrum, are Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Paul Simon (D-Ill.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.).

However, White House spokeswoman Marla Romash said that some of the changes were simply intended to clarify the Administration’s original intentions.