Clinton Health Reform Interest Continues

Interest in health care reform or in controlling health care costs to help bring down the deficit has not been lost by the Clinton Administration, says Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, but it does not want to move too fast this time round. Answering questions from members of the House Ways and Means Committee on the 1966 budget (Marketletter February 13), she was responding to an enquiry as to why the President dropped the proposals he made last year to save $118 billion over five years from Medicaid.

President Clinton does not want to "bludgeon" medium-sized businesses, she said. Additionally, the Administration's health experts are ready to talk with Republicans at any time to draft a bill towards comprehensive health care reform, she told health subcommittee chairman Representative Bill Thomas. In reply, he indicated that the Republicans would "do the heavy lifting if you're willing to help us."

Committee chairman Bill Archer noted that the Administration would have shifted costs with its proposal last year to save $490 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over a decade. In both his State of the Union address and in a recent TV interview with a local station in New Hampshire (the site of the first presidential primary in about a year), President Clinton said that many Americans felt the Administration had tried to move too fast in reforming the health care system. A long-term plan with incremental changes would have been better, he noted.