Democrats Reassert Need for Health Care Reform : Legislation: Party leaders reject GOP argument that welfare and crime are more pressing issues. Dole says Clinton plan won’t fly.

Overhaul of the nation’s health care system, including coverage for everyone, remains the goal this year despite Republican rumblings that it is not as important as crime and welfare reform, Democratic congressional leaders said Sunday.

“We do have to act on health care reform,” said Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), who said health care and welfare reform can be passed this year.

But Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas argued--as he has on several occasions--that Congress ought to scale back President Clinton’s sweeping health care proposal.

“We’re not going to get the vast programs that the President and Mrs. Clinton want,” Dole predicted on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation.” He said the Clinton plan amounts to “trying to shove something down the throat of the American people.”

Dole said health care coverage for all Americans, an area on which Clinton has said he will not compromise, is still a goal, but he added: “You’re not going to be able to legislate universal coverage.”

Mitchell, also appearing on CBS, said that while various health care proposals will be considered, coverage for the 37 million Americans now without health insurance must be “the essential element” of any bill for it to be passed.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), meanwhile, rejected suggestions that health care reform is not as badly needed as refashioning the welfare system.

“There isn’t any reason we can’t work on both of them together,” Foley said on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley.”

Mitchell and Foley also said they expect passage early this year of a major crime bill that puts more police on the streets and provides more money for prisons.

Foley discounted those who claim that there isn’t a crisis in health care, citing among other things the sharp increases in medical costs in recent years and the fact that many Americans are without health care coverage.

Medical costs totaled $75 billion in 1970, increased to $260 billion by 1980 and jumped to $700 billion by 1990, Foley said. “Within a year, we’re going to be spending over a trillion dollars.”

Some Republicans--including Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, who appeared with Foley on ABC--have argued that there isn’t a health care crisis and say lawmakers should concentrate on welfare reform or legislation aimed at curbing crime.

Recently, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, also suggested that health care reform is not as pressing as the need to overhaul welfare. He suggested that he might bottle up health care legislation if welfare changes are not given the same priority.

Mitchell said Sunday that he does not favor “holding one bill hostage to another.”