Clinton Pitches His Health Care Plan to Latinos : Reform: President speaks to La Raza at Miami meeting. He points out that nearly a third of Hispanic Americans lack insurance coverage.

President Clinton brought the latest promotional blitz for his health care plan to Latinos Monday, arguing that the group has more at stake than any other because of its singularly low rate of health insurance coverage.

“The Hispanic community has always stood for work over welfare, for holding families together against the odds,” Clinton told the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza, a leading advocacy group. Yet because so many of their members are in the ranks of the working poor, nearly one-third of Latinos have no insurance, compared with 20% of blacks and 13% of Anglos, he said. “This is a bigger issue to Hispanic Americans than any other group.”

White House officials noted that 40% of Latinos are covered by employer insurance--compared with 70% for Americans as a whole--in one sign of the group’s concentration in lower-paying jobs that do not offer insurance. And they said that Latinos have twice the likelihood of other Americans to be diabetic, increasing the difficulty of getting insurance coverage.

Clinton’s appearance before La Raza is part of a White House campaign to step up pressure on the House and Senate to pass a health reform bill in the final three weeks before Congress’ August recess. The leadership of both houses is trying to push a sharply divided membership toward compromise.

The White House has stressed that Clinton’s health reform plan is most beneficial to a working middle class, in part to dispel the troublesome view of many Americans that the program is primarily an anti-poverty initiative.

But one sign of the challenge Clinton still faces is that La Raza itself has not endorsed his plan.

While its membership favors the goal of universal coverage and mandatory employer-paid insurance, they have stayed clear of the Clinton plan because its universal coverage does not extend to illegal immigrants, officials said. And the group has been troubled by the possibility that the national health card the Administration has proposed might be used in ways that it considers discriminatory.

Clinton spoke of how the current system rewards society’s most and least fortunate but penalizes many in the middle.

“You want health care for sure? Get on welfare, go to jail, get elected to Congress or get rich. Be a federal employee. Be the President,” Clinton said.

But many working people lack coverage, and others risk losing it, he said. “And it’s not right.”

Clinton choked up as he talked of what the insurance system might mean for the ailing son of Henry G. Cisneros, the secretary of housing and urban development, if his father were like millions of other average Americans.

“What if Henry Cisneros were a traveling salesman (without insurance)?” Clinton asked. “What, for heaven’s sake, would happen to his son?” Cisneros’ son was born with a heart disorder.

While many of the uninsured are middle-class Americans, as Clinton noted, his reform program would also benefit millions of their poorer neighbors who do not qualify for Medicaid, whose state-set criteria vary widely.

In Texas, for instance, which is known for stingy benefits, a single mother with two children does not qualify for Medicaid if she earns more than $2,200 a year.

Clinton closed his speech hinting anew at some of the frustrations he feels these days in his job.

“I know everything I do as President isn’t popular,” Clinton said. “But I’ll tell you what: I show up for work every day and I ask people to face real problems. And this is a real problem.”

The President’s health care efforts got a well-orchestrated boost Monday from Democratic governors at the annual meeting of the National Governors’ Assn. in Boston. They adopted a resolution endorsing a solution to the nation’s health care problems by “providing every American guaranteed health benefits that cannot be taken away.”

About 15 of the nation’s 29 Democratic governors attended the breakfast meeting, according to Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh, head of the Democratic Governors’ Assn.

The idea of giving Clinton a show of support before he addresses the governors today had been discussed with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold M. Ickes, who is in charge of mobilizing political support for Clinton’s health care initiative.

Republicans at the conference complained that by adopting their own resolution the Democrats had introduced a partisan note into deliberations.

Times political writer Robert Shogan contributed to this story from Boston.