Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 4, 1993 TAG: 9311050324
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WASHINGTON - The health insurance lobby accused of lying by Hillary Rodham Clinton defended its TV ads and unveiled a new one Wednesday repeating there must be "a better way" than President Clinton's.
Clinton joined his wife's attack. He declared during a Pennsylvania tour to sell the plan that Americans pay 10 cents of every medical-care dollar for "profit and paperwork and bureaucracy that no other people anywhere in the world pay."
Accusing the insurance industry of greed, Clinton said, "There's a lot of money in this health care system that doesn't have a rip to do with your health, and we want to develop it in a way that can be devoted to your health care."
The head of the Health Insurance Association of America, Bill Gradison, expressed puzzlement over what he called the harshness of the White House response to the $6.5 million ad campaign.
"Our ads are accurate" and they raise questions that must be answered, said Gradison, a former Republican congressman from Ohio.
He said doctors, nonprofit insurers and other groups share the insurance group's misgivings about key aspects of the Clinton proposal, including its caps on insurance premiums and the creation of mandatory, exclusive insurance-buying alliances for most businesses and individuals.
In Washington, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen said the administration was reworking its calculation that 40 percent of Americans would pay higher premiums under the Clinton plan.
That figure didn't take into account out-of-pocket payments and is likely to come down, he told the Senate Finance Committee. - Associated Press
by CNB