Clinton’s Health-Care Position Praised : Policy: At a conference in Irvine, a retired GOP congressman from Ohio predicts the issue may become the new President’s Vietnam.

IRVINE —  A former Republican congressman gave credit Friday to President Clinton’s attention to health care reform, but he predicted that the issue may still become the Administration’s toughest political battle.

“Some say that health care may well be President Clinton’s Vietnam,” said Bill Gradison, an Ohio Republican who retired from Congress last month. Gradison had been a ranking minority member of the House Ways and Means Committee.

In a speech to a group of physicians and health care administrators attending a conference at UC Irvine on Friday, Gradison praised Clinton’s extensive knowledge of the complicated health care reform issue and his commitment to encourage public debate about the problems both before and after the election.

Choosing First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to head up the reforms is an indication that the new President is confident he will be able to sponsor substantive changes, Gradison said.

“The President has a lot of chips on the table,” Gradison said. “But he has created an excellent process with able people. They are all top-notch.”

Gradison was the keynote speaker during a two-day Health Care Forecast Conference sponsored by UCI’s Graduate School of Management. About 400 participants from as far away as Washington met Thursday and Friday to discuss what the medical industry should look like in the future and how to get there.

There was strong consensus among health care officials attending the conference that changes must be made and that a system centered around a “managed care” concept should be implemented nationwide.

A poll taken Thursday of about 150 participants at the conference found that 87% believe the industry should consider managed care--a system of controlling costs and health care--as the basis for the nation’s future health care system.

Seventy-eight percent of those who responded to the survey said they believe health insurance companies should be legally required to accept everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Such a reform could have dramatic implications for terminally ill patients, such as cancer and AIDs sufferers.

Ninety-two percent of the respondents also said they believe it is likely the federal government will impose health care spending limits, although most oppose such a concept.

Spending limits would likely cap what physicians and hospitals can charge as well as set prices for drugs and medical equipment. Many health care experts say that a competitive managed care environment would also allow the marketplace to slow the rise of health care costs.

Gradison said that the focus on health care during the presidential campaign was a change from years past, when most Americans took their care for granted.

“The American public will always consume as much health care as someone else is willing to pay for,” Gradison said. “They say, ‘Fix it, and send someone else a bill.’ ”

But with 36 million Americans uninsured, with hospitals facing financial problems and with health care taking an ever larger share of total gross domestic product--the sum of all things sold in the U.S.--lawmakers, voters and industry officials no longer ignore the issue.

Still, Gradison said the electoral debate failed on two points: No one defined what the minimum level of coverage should be or who would pay for it.

To succeed in his effort, Gradison said that Clinton should use the 1994 congressional elections as leverage to get new laws passed; build broad bipartisan support in Congress; emphasize a need for more primary care physicians and less specialists; simplify the insurance claim system; and remove barriers to managed care.

“There is an enormous challenge for officeholders to make a plan and support it,” Gradison said. “The trouble with health care is that everyone’s second choice (to reform) is to do nothing.”