Initiative Sought on Health Care : Elections: Coalition advocates single-payer system in California patterned after Medicare. Leaders criticize insurance industry ads attacking Clinton plan.

About 2,600 miles from the health care reform debate going on in Congress, leaders of a coalition of 25 Los Angeles-area groups that represent a combined 5 million members clearly feel left out and let their anger and frustration boil over Thursday.

Leaders of the coalition criticized the news media, the insurance industry and opponents of President Clinton’s health care reform, saying they are frustrated over what they believe is a weakening of the resolve to enact legislation that would provide health care coverage to all Americans.

“We are in a predicament right now. We are sort of like the man who’s got a lit stick of dynamite. We can use this to start the foundation of something really good, or it can blow up in our face and kill us. Or the fuse can go out and it can fizzle,” said Tom Whalen, who is part of a group trying to collect enough signatures to put an initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot that would create a single-payer health system in California, patterned after the Canadian system or Medicare.

Because Congress currently has several health care bills under discussion, the coalition said there is no single bill they can support. Instead, it adopted a broad statement of general principles.

Among the principles supported by the coalition: a health plan that provides universal coverage; enactment of a set of comprehensive benefits such as preventive care, long-term care, prescription medications and mental health services; allowance for a choice of providers; cost controls, and inclusion of an option that will allow states to adopt a single-payer system.

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Jim Wood, executive secretary-treasurer for the county Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, said polls show that the majority of Americans support the same principles as the ones adopted by the coalition.

“That majority has spoken. They want health coverage. . . . It is confusing because the health industry has made it confusing. They have a vested interest in stopping health insurance for everyone,” Wood said.

Much of the anger expressed by the coalition leaders focused on television ads sponsored by the health insurance industry. The ads knock the Clinton plan. They also contend that news coverage has stressed the politics of health care rather than its substance.

“This is a deadly serious issue with us, especially those of us in the workplace and the labor movement. The majority of strikes in this nation have for many years now been over attacks on our health care benefits issue,” said Dave Sickler, director of Region 6 of the AFL-CIO, which is affiliated with about 400 unions.