Reprinted from The San Franciso Chronicle, Saturday, January 25, 1997, Page A4:

"Gephardt Cool to Clinton Plan-
Lawmaker says proposed cut in Medicare growth sounds high"

Washington Post
Washington

President Clinton's Medicare plan ran into more trouble on Capitol Hill yesterday as House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., distanced himself from the proposal, saying its projected $138 billion reduction in the growth of spending over six years "sounds high to me."

Gephardt said he would reserve further judgment until he sees the details of the president's plan, but he made it clear he will oppose anything that appears to him as a threat to the program, which provides health care to 38 million senior citizens.

Without specific reference to Clinton's plan, Gephardt said Democrats campaigned to protect Medicare last year as part of what he described as a "defining difference" between the two parties. He promised to lead a fight against "any proposal that violates our promise or the core values of our party."

As far as he was concerned, Gephardt said, it was "not a promise...to be broken after the election."

In remarks to a reporter after he and Gephardt spoke to the Economic Policy Institute, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., defended Clinton's Medicare plan as "acceptable" and played down the significance of Gephardt's remarks, noting that Gephardt did not say the president's proposals were "unacceptable."

Gephardt's coolness toward Clinton's plan emerged as the president's proposal - initially welcomed by Republicans as trying to meet them halfway on the issue of Medicare spending reductions - came under increasing fire from lawmakers of both parties.

Representative Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee that handles Medicare, laid down some markers of his own yesterday, projecting an air of respectful but skeptical reaction to Clinton's proposal to cut $138 billion over six years from Medicare growth.

Extending the hospital trust fund beyond its projected collapse in 2001 is not the only goal, Thomas said. "Years for years' sake is not a virtue" if it isn't accompanied by broader structural changes in the program.

Gephardt made no direct reference to Clinton's Medicare plan in his speech to the economic policy group. In answer to a question from the audience, he said the president "stood and fought with us" to protect Medicare in the last Congress but then questioned Clinton's current plan, which calls for deeper cuts in the growth of spending than the administration supported last year.

"The number he put out (earlier this week) sounds high to me, but we've got to look at the policies," Gephardt said.

"The test is very simple, " he added. "You look for what will extend the longevity of the program as much as we can, hopefully 10 years, and you look at what the policies actually do to people. And when we get greater back-up from the White House, we'll be able to judge his proposal from that viewpoint."

clinicalfreedom: "the ability of patients and physicians to do all that is medically necessary without interference."