Dole Charges First Lady With a ‘Cheap Shot’

With a pivotal Senate committee struggling to get health care reform back on track, tensions boiled over Wednesday as Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) accused First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton of taking “a cheap shot” at Congress to win support for the Administration’s bill.

Dole’s comments marked a rhetorical removal of the gloves. Thus far, opponents of President Clinton’s plan generally have refrained from personally criticizing the First Lady, who led the team that put together the Administration plan and who has come to personify it in the public’s mind.

Sources said that during a closed session of the Senate Finance Committee, an angry Dole went so far as to ask the panel to take the extraordinary step of publicly criticizing the First Lady for saying on national television that it is “only fair” that the American people should have health care benefits as good as those enjoyed by members of Congress.

“It’s sort of a cheap shot, frankly,” Dole said in an interview. “She’s been doing it for weeks, and so has (the President).”

Dole was incensed in part because the congressional health care plan is the same one to which all federal employees and their families--including the President and the First Lady--belong. Federal employees have a choice of several insurance plans, with Blue Cross being the most popular.

Added one GOP aide: “She throws it around like a challenge: Here are these guys ripping off the system, and leaving you guys with nothing.”

The new, more personal tone in the health care debate reflects the make-or-break point that the deliberations have reached, as well as lawmakers’ sensitivity to the low regard the public now has for Congress.

Dole also suggested derisively that Hillary Clinton has attempted to disguise old-fashioned partisanship by coming up with such terms as “conviction politics” in rallying Democrats to the President’s health care plan. That, he said, was the appeal she made to Democratic senators during a luncheon meeting Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

The First Lady made the comment about lawmakers’ health insurance in response to a question from NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw during a program on health care broadcast Tuesday night. Dole also appeared on the program.

Dole said Wednesday he plans to offer an amendment to the health care bill that would require members of Congress, the President and the First Lady to pay for their own health coverage.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) indicated that he was prepared to go along with the proposal to criticize Hillary Clinton, a source said, until committee Democrats argued it down.

Lisa Caputo, a spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton, said the First Lady was mystified at Dole’s anger because many in Congress have made a similar argument. “We don’t quite understand why he is so upset. (Senate Majority Leader) George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said the same thing,” Caputo said.

Meanwhile, a day after indicating that his committee cannot begin drafting a health care reform bill until the middle of July, Moynihan abruptly changed course and said the panel would hold its first public “markup” on Monday. It is still far from certain, however, that it can finish before Congress’ July 4 recess, as lawmakers had hoped.

Although five congressional committees are charged with producing health care legislation, the Finance Committee is considered the most crucial battleground because its membership is most reflective of the Senate at large. House members are watching it just as closely as their Senate counterparts because they fear taking any difficult stands on the issue before they have some idea of what the Senate will do.

Hope for a consensus now appears to ride on an informal group of moderate Democrats and Republicans. The group has been meeting feverishly in an effort to present the committee with a proposal that could claim broad bipartisan support.

“We’re moving along, but I tell you, it is tough,” said Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), who is considered the group’s leader.

As described by participants in the effort, the approach under discussion is a complicated one that would first give the market a chance to work by putting into place reforms aimed at making health insurance more affordable.

If at least 95% of the public did not have insurance by the year 2002, a government-appointed commission then would make recommendations for other means of expanding coverage. And if Congress did not accept that proposal, individuals would be forced to buy health coverage.

However, the proposal raises as many questions as it seeks to answer. For starters, there is no evidence that the idea of requiring individuals to pay for insurance would be any more acceptable than the President’s proposal to force businesses to pay for it. The proposal is also expected to include large tax increases on business, which would be used to help subsidize individuals who could not afford coverage.

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.