Clinton Hails Kaiser Initiative for Children

With President Clinton cheering them on, officials of the Kaiser Permanente HMO on Monday unveiled a $100-million plan to subsidize medical treatment for needy children in California over the next several years.

The commitment could improve health care for up to 50,000 low-income children a year, said David M. Lawrence, chairman of the Oakland-based, not-for-profit health maintenance organization, as Clinton looked on approvingly from the podium outside the Mar Vista Elementary School.

“Now you know what we’re here to talk about--too many children all across America, too many children here in California, some children in this crowd today--don’t have health insurance,” Clinton told the crowd of several hundred, many of whom held video cameras. “We are here today because Kaiser Permanente is going to make a major change in that for you in California. We want to congratulate them, but even more important, we ought to be here to resolve to do better,” Clinton said.

White House officials have been surprised by polls showing a decline in Clinton’s popularity in California, an electoral treasure trove that has supported his two bids for the presidency.

On Monday, Clinton appeared in Los Angeles and San Francisco, highlighting urban problems and the needs of children. He also spoke at three political fund-raisers, including two for Sen. Barbara Boxer, where he was expected to raise a total of $1.5 million.

At the Mar Vista school, students had been anticipating the event since last week, when their principal made the announcement that the president was coming. During the last days of classes, black-suited Secret Service agents started lurking around the school to check out security.

Then on Monday, bomb-sniffing guard dogs raced around campus and agents began patrolling from the roof. A noisy line of eager parents armed with lawn chairs and cameras snaked around the quiet residential streets. Police monitored every corner. From their porches, neighbors saw the area transformed into a prime-time spectacle.

When Clinton spoke at the school he employed unusually strong language in defense of his health care goals, alluding to an issue that proved an embarrassing fiasco in his first term.

“I tried hard to enact a plan that would give all American working families health insurance, and it’s well known that I failed,” Clinton said. “But I’m not ashamed that I tried.”

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If the president was stealing their thunder, Kaiser officials didn’t seem to mind. White-jacketed nurses and physicians from Kaiser Permanente provided a backdrop for Clinton’s speech, and Lawrence maintained that Kaiser wanted to make “the first move” in response to Clinton’s “call for action.”

The president’s budget plan calls for $16 billion to expand health care for children.

Some 835,000 uninsured children in California are in working-poor households that do not qualify for Medi-Cal or have coverage of their own, according to Kaiser; in addition, 630,000 children in the state are eligible for Medi-Cal but are not enrolled because of language and other problems.

Lawrence said Kaiser would identify children in need of increased coverage with the help of schools, the California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board and through other means.

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Clinton began the day in San Francisco, where he announced plans to offer inner-city police officers a 50% discount on government-owned housing if it is located in the districts they patrol. The effort, he said, would build on the administration’s bid to put 100,000 added police on the street.

“You have shown me how more police officers on our streets have made so many of our neighborhoods feel like home again,” Clinton told the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “Just imagine what it will be like when more police make those neighborhoods their homes again.”

The president also announced other initiatives designed to trim closing costs, perhaps by $200, for certain first-time home buyers in central cities.

The discount would apply to mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration, cutting a quarter of a percentage point off the current rate. That would come on top of $1,200 in such savings previously approved by the White House.

The “Officer Next Door” program would offer up to 2,000 police officers in low-income neighborhoods the chance to buy houses owned by the Department of Housing and Urban Development at half price with a down payment of only $100.

“We have to create in our cities our national ideal of one America that crosses all racial, ethnic and other lines, that gives every child a chance to flourish and every citizen a chance to serve,” Clinton told the mayors. “America can never fulfill its complete promise until all our cities fulfill theirs.”

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan was in San Francisco for the mayors conference and later returned to Los Angeles, where he attended the ceremony at the Mar Vista school. Riordan described himself as “very impressed” with the president’s urban initiatives and said providing health care for all children is a “very key part of helping the economically disadvantaged,” along with job training and quality education.

Riordan also applauded the program to sell foreclosed houses to police officers. Three hundred such houses, originally financed by FHA loans, are scattered around Los Angeles. The city started a pilot program of its own with federal funds last March, offering low-interest loans and small down payments to police and firefighters buying homes in Los Angeles. So far, 14 police officers and two firefighters have completed purchases, officials said.

After Clinton’s remarks to the mayors in San Francisco, he went on to his first Boxer fund-raiser of the day at the Hyatt Regency, where he made a point of noting their family ties--Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother Tony is married to Boxer’s daughter, Nicole.

“Barbara Boxer’s first grandchild is my second nephew, so that’s really why I’m here--it has nothing to do with party or conviction or anything,” Clinton joked. Later, he described Boxer as “a rare treasure for our country.”

Times staff writers Ted Rohrlich and Miles Corwin and correspondent Matea Gold contributed to this report.