10 Doctors’ Groups Rally for Clinton Plan : Medicine: President counters AMA dropping support for employer-mandated insurance. He gathers together other physician organizations.

A week after the American Medical Assn. backed away from its support for a key element of the Administration’s health care plan, President Clinton countered Thursday by gathering representatives of 10 doctors’ organizations in support of the bill’s basic goals.

The groups, with a combined membership of about 300,000, include various types of primary care doctors--those family doctors, pediatricians, gynecologists and other physicians to whom most people turn first when they need medical care. Under the Clinton proposal, the role of primary care in the health care system would be enhanced, while that of more specialized doctors would be de-emphasized.

The President commended the groups supporting his plan as doctors who “still know what it’s like to deliver a baby in the middle of the night, or to get a call at daybreak from a mother whose child has a 102 fever, or to care for an asthmatic patient for whom every breath is a struggle.”

“The presence of these physicians here debunks the notion that the plan we have presented is some sort of big government bureaucratic plan that erodes the doctor-patient relationship,” Clinton added.

Their endorsement also represented a badly needed boost for Clinton’s reform plan, which suffered a setback last week when the AMA backed away from its support of a requirement that employers pay 80% of their workers’ health insurance premiums.

Of the roughly half-dozen major health care reform proposals now before Congress, Clinton’s is the only one that would put the burden of providing coverage on employers. Many business groups have said that it could be devastating for small firms.

Initially, the 296,000-member AMA endorsed an employer mandate. But after a rebellion by its conservative members at a meeting last week, the nation’s largest doctors’ organization announced that it also might favor other means of achieving universal health coverage.

Another option, advanced by congressional Republicans, would make individuals responsible for having health insurance, just as states now require them to have automobile insurance.

The physicians’ groups assembled by Clinton Thursday did not give his plan their unqualified endorsement but praised its basic directions--including universal coverage, better reimbursement for preventive health care and its emphasis on primary care.

One who spoke in favor of the plan was Dr. Betty Lowe, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who also had been Chelsea Clinton’s doctor in Little Rock, Ark. She called it “the best vehicle proposed to date to achieve the kind of health care reform children need.”

Other organizations represented were: the American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians, American College of Preventive Medicine, American Medical Women’s Assn., American Society of Internal Medicine, American Thoracic Society, National Medical Assn. and National Hispanic Medical Assn.

The Administration also released new details Thursday of how it would finance its health plan, including the fact that it would achieve $28 billion in savings by requiring older workers now covered by Medicare to get their primary health insurance from their employers.

Separately, a consumer group closely tied to the Clinton effort released a study indicating that the President’s plan would by the year 2001 provide most insured Americans with health benefits in areas where they now lack them.

Among its findings: 53 million people would gain coverage for prescription drugs; 121 million for dental care; 139 million for vision care; 153 million for mental illness and substance abuse treatment.

It also estimated that 37 million people who now have private insurance would see their out-of-pocket medical costs reduced.

But there also were new signs of trouble for the Administration plan.

An analysis released Thursday by the House Ways and Means health subcommittee indicated that while about three-quarters of Americans expect health reform to mean higher taxes, slightly less than half are willing to pay those additional taxes.

Moreover, the support for additional taxes is on the decline, according to the polling data collected from various sources by Robert J. Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Lawmakers also say that their constituents are expressing strong doubts about the Clinton plan. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) suggested Thursday that there is no overwhelming national demand for a complete overhaul of the current system--particularly one that would make health care yet another government entitlement program.