First Lady Urges Nation to Back Health Proposal : Reform: Meanwhile, Sen. Dole says the Clintons’ refusal to compromise may prevent Congress from approving legislation this year.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged Americans to unite behind the President’s health care reform proposals, while Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) accused the Clintons of creating an “executive gridlock” that endangered the enactment of any health care legislation this year.

“In many respects, the fight (for universal health care) has just begun as the debate moves to the House and Senate floors,” the First Lady told more than 10,000 members of the National Education Assn. in New Orleans, adding: “We must redouble our efforts” to move Congress to act in the face of “strong and organized opposition.”

She pleaded with the group to “join with my husband and me to speak out for the voiceless who need affordable health care. . . . When you’re looking in the eyes of a sick child, you’re not looking at a Democrat or a Republican, but an American who is in need of health care.”

But Dole, speaking on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” challenged the Clintons to back away from some key elements in their plan, saying their refusal to compromise threatened approval of any legislation this year.

“We believe if we could get rid of executive gridlock--President and Mrs. Clinton--if they would come to the table now, we could still get a good bill this year,” Dole said.

Dole referred to Saturday’s vote by the Senate Finance Committee, which approved a bill that had all but eliminated the major components of the Administration’s health care reform package.

“Employer mandates are dead. Price controls are dead. These big mandatory (purchasing) alliances are dead,” he said. “. . . The American people aren’t ready for a totally government-run system.”

On Saturday, the Finance Committee passed a bill that fell short of Clinton’s goal of guaranteeing health coverage to everyone, instead approving a plan that set a goal of 95% coverage by the year 2002. To achieve that, the proposal relies on a combination of economic incentives, changes in insurance law and government subsidies.

If voluntary efforts fail, the bill provides for a commission to devise a plan for making up the difference, and Congress would then act upon the commission’s recommendations.

The committee also rejected two additional cornerstones of the Clinton plan: requiring employers to foot a large part of the bill for insurance premiums for their workers, and price caps on insurance premiums.

Two House committees and two Senate committees have passed health bills.

Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), a member of the Finance Committee who also appeared on the ABC program, called the bill “a seven or eight” on a scale in which the plan proposed by President Clinton is a 10.

“I think it has to be a compromise,” he said. “This bill has to be formed from the middle out. Without middle ground . . . it’s not going to happen.”

But Dole pushed a Republican alternative he said was supported by at least 40 of the Senate’s 44 Republicans and is similar in many ways to the Finance Committee’s bill.

The Dole plan claims no new taxes and rejects the idea of providing a single package of benefits for everyone. Dole said the GOP was attempting to bring Democrats into the fold, and he predicted a few would join.