Clinton Health Plan Supporters Head East to Lobby Congress : Caravan: Advocates board buses as they begin national road trip to drum up support for reform. Their destination is Washington, D.C.

Blazing their own trails east, caravans of buses carrying dozens of supporters of universal national health care began heading toward Washington on Friday as part of a lobbying effort for President Clinton’s health care plan.

Carrying young and old, ill and injured, as well as doctors, nurses and celebrities, the first wagon train of buses pulled out on a hot and muggy afternoon, sent on their way after a pep rally attended by several thousand well-wishers and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pioneer Square in the heart of downtown Portland.

They call themselves the Reform Riders, and they will be joined in the nation’s capital in early August by similar caravans from Texas and Missouri, Louisiana and Massachusetts.

Organizers of the caravans include Families USA, a pro-Clinton lobbying group, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has 1.3 million members. They have sought contributions from labor unions, businesses and other groups to help pay for the caravans, which are modeled after similar bus tours that drummed up enthusiasm for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign.

“Pass it now,” the Portland crowd chanted, boosting signs and tiny flags and applauding Mrs. Clinton’s call to raise their voices against Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and other congressional leaders who oppose universal, employer-mandated health care.

“Anyone who votes against universal coverage is not just casting an easy vote to get out of a dilemma, but is going to have to be held accountable for that kind of vote,” she warned.

Most of the bus riders--several hundred strong--do not have health insurance. Some are people who are disabled and unable to work. Some have children who are ill. There were families who cannot afford health care, as well as people who lost their insurance the day they lost their jobs.

Clinton Nelson of Portland said he can’t get a job because he would lose Medicaid assistance for his six children. Sixteen-year-old Rachel Caruthers, suffering from epilepsy and cancer, said she will lose her Medicaid coverage when she graduates from high school here and finds her first job.

“My father got laid off,” she said, “and there went our health insurance.”

Edward Kerns is riding the buses in his wheelchair, a victim of a paralyzing spinal cord injury that broke his neck 16 years ago. Now 37 and finishing a master’s degree program here in social work, he said his re-entry into the labor force will cost him his Medicaid benefits too.

“If Congress doesn’t pass health insurance now, there are going to be a lot more people like me,” he predicted.

Daniel Lumley, 30, of Seattle, who lost a right arm and left leg in a motorcycle accident four years ago, said his insurance vanished when he could no longer work as a warehouseman. He said his unpaid bills total $35,000 and that his credit has been ruined.

He now is on Medicare, he said, which covers only 80% of his continuing health care costs, but now he will lose that protection when he finishes college and begins a new career as a teacher.

Not all in the downtown park were Clinton supporters. Many carried signs or walked picket lines protesting Clinton’s plan because they fear it will include federally funded abortions. Others criticized it as a big federal program that will tighten the government’s control over individuals.

“Beware the Phoney Express,” shouted Scott Lively, mocking the bus caravans as he and other protesters marched along Morrison Street.

As director of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, a conservative group opposed to government intervention, he said “we believe there are better ways of handling the health care problem.”

With a wife and two children at home, and about $1,500 in health costs for his family last year, Lively suggested that all Americans should do as he does: pay for their own medical needs.

And if someone in his family suddenly suffers a catastrophic injury? “We’re the normal family and we’ll keep the costs as low as they can be and then we’ll pay our bills,” he said. “We wouldn’t ask or expect everyone else in the country to bail us out.”

But Mrs. Clinton, in her address sending the bus riders to Washington, said it is the just that kind of unseen medical emergency expense that would be protected under the plan that she and the President are proposing.

“You know,” she said, “this part of the country was settled by people who got on wagon trains and went out not knowing exactly where they would end up. When we began this health care crusade I sometimes felt like I was on a journey that I did not know exactly where it would end up either.

“But every day that went on I became more and more convinced that if the American people had a chance to vote themselves, there would be no question about the outcome.

“And if we give our energy, our hearts, our souls to the next few weeks and make it clear that the American people want what the members of Congress have--guaranteed health insurance paid for with an employer-employee shared responsibility system--we will get it for every single American.”

Reform riders will be holding rallies in the dozens of cities they will be passing through on their cross-country trek. They plan to collect letters from supporters along the way and hand them to members of Congress when they reach Washington. Organizers expect to spend as much as $2 million on the caravan. Group sponsors were asked to pay $20,000 for a bus.