White House Urges Dole to Help Break Health Bill Impasse

Sen. Bob Dole’s last act before resigning from the Senate this week should be to use his political clout to break an impasse over a bill expanding health insurance coverage, the White House said Sunday.

House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) said he is confident a compromise can be reached, but House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) indicated that he wouldn’t yield on the contentious issue of medical savings accounts.

“If there is anything I hope Sen. Dole can deliver on before he leaves the Senate,” it is the bill sponsored by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.), White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta said.

Dole, who is resigning from the Senate on Tuesday to devote time to his presidential campaign, has stressed that he wants to complete work on the bill that guarantees portability of insurance and coverage of preexisting conditions.

But efforts to get a bill to President Clinton, who favors it, have been held up by the insistence of Republicans, generally supported by Dole, on adding provisions for medical savings accounts.