Citing Health Crisis, Clinton Slams Tax Cuts

WASHINGTON —  Former President Clinton warned Thursday that the nation is facing a new health-care crisis and said President Bush’s focus on tax cuts is contributing to rising medical insurance premiums and the growing number of Americans without coverage.

By injecting his voice into the emerging debate over health-care reform -- which he championed a decade ago, with politically disastrous results -- Clinton set a marker for the Democratic Party on an issue likely to figure prominently in this congressional session and the 2004 presidential campaign.

The former president’s remarks came just five days before Bush is expected to discuss health issues in his State of the Union address.

Bush is not only calling for prescription drug coverage for seniors under Medicare, he also intends to push for tax credits to help low-income workers buy medical insurance. Clinton denounced the latter.

With Republicans back in control of both the White House and Congress -- and with Sen. Bill Frist, a physician from Tennessee, the new Senate majority leader -- Republicans are under pressure to produce results on the health-care front.

In another sign of the gathering momentum Thursday, Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.), a centrist, proposed requiring every American to carry health insurance, with the government subsidizing the indigent. Breaux is considered a bellwether lawmaker with a penchant for seeking bipartisan compromises.

“It’s time to not continue to tinker around the edges,” Breaux said. “I believe that what we offer today can put America back on the right path toward an America where everyone has health insurance and quality health care. I think it’s time to let that debate begin.”

Recent polls have found that public dissatisfaction with the health-care system has doubled in the last year. “It’s coming back,” said Harvard analyst Robert Blendon, who has tracked the issue of health-care reform for more than a decade.

Behind the public unhappiness, he said, is the combination of premium increases, which hit employers and workers, and cutbacks in benefits imposed by companies as cost-saving measures.

A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit think tank based in Menlo Park, Calif., found that:

Insurance premiums rose by 12.7% last year -- the highest annual increase since 1990.

More workers in 2002 faced cutbacks in benefits than increases, with 17% reporting a lowered level of benefits.

78% of large firms said they are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” this year to increase the premiums that their employees must pay.

42% of large employers said they are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” this year to increase the level of deductibles required of their workers.

Clinton did not dwell on such numbers in his remarks in Washington before a gathering of activists who supported his failed attempt in 1993-94 to revamp the health-care system.

Rather, the former president discussed broad trends and focused on the plight of the estimated 41 million Americans who lack medical insurance.

Repeatedly, he denounced Bush’s 10-year, $1.35-trillion tax cut that Congress passed in 2001, saying that it disproportionately favors the wealthiest Americans.

Clinton said that income tax relief scheduled in 2004 and 2006 for the highest brackets should be canceled, with the savings sent to states to bolster their health insurance programs, such as Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program).

Clinton said his proposal would generate “hundreds of billions of dollars” over the next 10 years for the states. “In times like this, states usually get more money for health from Washington,” Clinton said.

He added that Bush’s latest tax-cut proposal, which would amount to $670 billion over 10 years, would hurt states even more.

Clinton predicted that Bush’s proposed economic stimulus package “would blow a long-term hole in the federal budget bigger than the first tax-cut bill” and cost states $4 billion a year in lost revenue.

“How many uninsured kids can you cover with $4 billion? How many hospitals can you keep open with $4 billion?” he asked.

Bush is expected to propose giving low-income workers as much as $1,000 a year each, and low-income families up to $3,000, to buy health insurance. But many health economists say the amounts would be insufficient in most markets -- and Clinton agreed.

“It looks like we’re giving people something we’re not,” he said.

“If you give the worker less than $100-a-month in tax credits to buy health insurance that costs more than twice that, it probably won’t work,” Clinton added.

Despite his unstinting criticism of Bush’s tax cuts and health policies, Clinton advised his audience to seek accommodations with Republicans.

Wistfully recalling his controversial efforts to restructure the nation’s health-care system, Clinton admitted that he ended up paying “quite a political price for it” -- a reference to the GOP takeover of Congress in the 1994 elections that reshaped the political landscape.

“But we should be persistent and we shouldn’t let people say that we don’t have time to deal with this now.”