HILLARY CLINTON BEGINS WORK ON HEALTH-CARE CHALLENGE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 27, 1993                   TAG: 9301270178
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium
HILLARY CLINTON BEGINS WORK ON HEALTH-CARE CHALLENGE
Hillary Rodham Clinton got a quick start Tuesday on her job heading her husband's health care task force, pursuing support on Capitol Hill within hours of the appointment and seeking advice from award-winning health-care experts.
She also wowed New York school kids, one of whom declared she was pretty "and I think she's powerful."
Clinton picked up a community service award on her first trip outside Washington as first lady, and used the occasion to question fellow winners whose projects involve health care for children.
The Lewis Hine Award was for her service to children over the years.
President Clinton appointed his wife, a former corporate lawyer, to lead the task force on one of the most important issues of his presidency, saying Monday that she was "a first lady of many talents."
Asked what she planned to do in her new role, Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, "Do what my husband asks me to do."
Prodded for specifics, she said her job will be "to perform the function that he outlined yesterday [and] to come up with - by working and coordinating with a lot of people - his health-care proposal that he will present to Congress in May."
Although reluctant to talk publicly about her new role, Hillary Clinton called several congressmen in the first 24 hours on the job, officials said. The conversations were general, part of an initial effort "to reach out to people," said an official familiar with the situation.
The official believed some of the calls were made from New York. Sen. Donald Riegle, D-Mich., said he got a phone call from Hillary Clinton late Monday.
While her husband was governor of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton headed an Education Standards Committee that played a leading role in pushing through school reforms. She also headed a state panel on rural health problems.
For her first trip since the inauguration, Clinton chose to forgo the usual government jet generally used by first ladies and took a commercial flight to New York.
Her first stop was at Alexander Humboldt School - also known as P.S. 115 - in a gritty immigrant neighborhood in Upper Manhattan. Clinton spent about 30 minutes helping bank executive Maria Alvarez tutor fourth- and fifth-grade students.
She offered advice to the students, holding their hands, patting them on their shoulders and recalling her own problems with multiplication tables.
"My father would get me up in the morning and say, `All right, we're going to do multiplication before breakfast,' " she told the students. She conceded that the math "was hard for me."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB