Clinton Takes Shot at Critics of His Health Plan : Reform: He tells auto workers that talk of a government takeover of insurance system is wrong. He says medical costs will rise without his package.

Taking on his health care critics before an audience of friendly auto workers, President Clinton warned Tuesday that the slowed growth in medical costs will “go right back up again” if the country does not follow General Motors’ lead in supporting his reform plan.

Clinton, speaking at a Chevrolet light truck assembly plant here, told auto workers not to believe business groups and insurance companies that contend his plan would bring about a government takeover of the health care system.

“It’s not true,” he said. “What the President wants to do is to keep the system we’ve got now and give it to everybody: guaranteed private health insurance, private doctors, private providers--a private system.”

Without naming names, Clinton took a shot at the Health Insurance Assn. of America--which represents the interests of smaller insurers--for its latest round of advertisements attacking his health plan.

Clinton said he was “tickled” by the HIAA’s commercials. “I read these ads of these folks that are so desperate to keep the system we have now. And they say: ‘Oh, the President wants to have the government take over the health care system.’ It isn’t true.”

In a reference to insurers’ financial resources and political savvy, Clinton added: “Look, I know there’s a lot of money in this. And there are a lot of good people who work for those companies. But you just have to ask yourself whether we can afford to continue to spend 40% more than (other countries) and not cover everybody.”

Clinton also criticized a health reform plan by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) that has emerged as the leading alternative to the Administration’s initiative. Cooper’s proposal promises “universal access” to health insurance, but would not guarantee coverage for all Americans.

“There’s universal access to this truck,” Clinton said, pointing to a vehicle behind him. “But only people with money can pay (for) it.”

In stressing the need for universal coverage, Clinton told of a woman who had written him about her husband, who developed lung cancer but was denied treatment because he had no health insurance.

“They wouldn’t even treat him, and he died in five weeks,” Clinton said. “Our approach completely outlaws insurance discrimination. . . . Our plan reduces the control of the insurance companies and gives more input to workers and to business.”

And he told of a Shreveport woman, an employee of an insurance company, who suffered a brain aneurysm. Even when her doctors told her she was “totally healed,” she couldn’t find new insurance.

“There are people like that all over the country,” Clinton said.

Clinton said that medical inflation “goes down every time there’s a serious threat to reform the health care system.” But if his bill is rejected, he said, “it will go right back up again, just like it has every time in the last 50 years.”

Clinton’s remarks Tuesday came as the White House is struggling to overcome a series of setbacks in its health care reform crusade.

Last week, the National Assn. of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all declined to endorse the Clinton plan. On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office ruled that insurance premiums paid by workers and their employers would have to be included in the federal budget under Clinton’s plan.

The White House contends that these setbacks are temporary, and that it will find a way around the CBO’s findings.

Clinton’s comments before the crowd of about 2,000 were beamed live to other auto workers around the country.

The receptive audience was assembled by one of the few companies that still supports the President’s plan.

A key reason for GM’s support is the plan’s provision to pick up 80% of the health insurance costs of workers who retire between the ages of 55 and 64. The auto makers and other old-line manufacturers have large numbers of such workers, many of whom could be offered early retirement buyouts as companies continue to trim their payrolls.

Clinton mentioned the early retirement provision of his plan, arguing that it would make U.S. companies able to better compete with firms overseas.

“Our approach protects the early retirees and finds a way to help companies pay for it to spread the cost of that, to make General Motors, our steel companies, a lot of our other companies far more competitive,” Clinton said.

He praised GM’s executives and union officials as “enlightened business leaders.”