First Lady Invokes Nixon Name in Drive : Health care: Hillary Rodham Clinton cites ex-President’s 1974 proposal to deal with uninsured as she addresses nation’s newspaper publishers on medical insurance.

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday invoked the name of the late President Richard Nixon in an effort to sell the nation’s newspaper publishers--known as a conservative bunch--on Clinton-style health care reform.

Noting that President Clinton’s controversial plan advocates that companies and workers share the cost of a system that would provide medical care for everyone, Mrs. Clinton reminded the audience that “Nixon proposed an employee-employer system in 1974” to deal with the high number of uninsured Americans.

Ironically, 20 years ago as a young law school graduate, the First Lady participated in the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment proceedings against Nixon, who died Friday at 81. Mrs. Clinton, who spoke at an Associated Press luncheon at the Newspaper Assn. of America’s annual convention here, strayed briefly from her stock speech and seized a moment two days before Nixon’s funeral to reminisce about her one meeting with Nixon, which took place at the White House after the Clintons’ arrival.

“He was extremely gracious,” she said of their encounter. “He talked to me about health care.”

Fresh from an unusual news conference Friday in Washington where she apologized for the way she and the White House had handled questions about her financial dealings, Mrs. Clinton sought with her 22-minute speech to refocus attention on the project that has consumed her since the first days of the Clinton Administration.

Her audience of more than 1,000 publishers and editors at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill welcomed her warmly, if not effusively. Frank A. Daniels Jr., chairman of the Associated Press, introduced her as America’s New Age First Lady.

Mrs. Clinton noted that the “great historic debate about health care . . . takes an enormous amount of coverage” to explain the complexities. She added that “as I follow the coverage, I see how uneven it is.”

Under the Clinton reform, she said, every American would be guaranteed private health insurance. The system would also prohibit the insurance industry from excluding from coverage those with certain conditions and from imposing limits on lifetime benefits.

“The President’s approach guarantees choice of doctor and health plan,” a choice that fewer than half of the nation’s employees have today, she added. “If we do nothing about the current marketplace, that choice will become more and more illusory.”