Clinton seeks Republican help to pass White House patients' rights bill

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Saying that ''all we need is one vote,'' President Clinton opened a drive to find a Republican senator who might bend to election-year pressure and help pass a White House-supported patients' rights bill.

''We are so close. We are one vote away,'' Clinton said Thursday, standing on a University of Missouri stage with doctors and nurses in white medical coats.

Clinton launched his appeal here to help Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan, battling to unseat Republican Sen. John Ashcroft in a tight race. On Monday, the president will visit Philadelphia to appear with Democratic Rep. Ron Klink, who is running against Sen. Rick Santorum, a first-term Republican.

The White House also is considering visits later in Minnesota, Michigan, Oregon and Delaware to try to make patients' rights an issue.

Both Ashcroft and Santorum voted for a Senate-passed Republican measure containing limited patient protections, including a restricted right to sue HMOs. Clinton said the GOP measure was a patients' rights bill in name only and actually would take away some of the protections that Missouri enacted in a patients' bill that Carnahan signed in 1997.

Carnahan is challenging Ashcroft to reverse his vote against the White House proposal. Ashcroft accuses Carnahan of playing politics with health care and says he is committed to reaching bipartisan compromise this year.

Republicans say the Democrats' version amounts to health insurance run by the federal government and would increase health care costs.

''It has always been my goal to send an enforceable, responsible patients' bill of rights to the president,'' said Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., head of a bipartisan committee working on compromise legislation. ''What I will not do is pass a bill that would cause employers to drop health insurance, dramatically increase costs and force millions of Americans into the ranks of the uninsured.''

Clinton said the GOP bill would exclude 135 million Americans from coverage, restrict access to specialists, emergency rooms and clinical trials and limit the right to sue. He promised anew to veto the Republican bill, saying it would be ''dead on arrival'' if it reaches the White House.

''Fundamentally, patients must be able to hold health plans fully accountable for harmful decisions,'' the president said.

''We need a real patients' bill of rights with real accountability and real rights, not one that just provides cover for the special interests,'' Clinton said. ''We don't need more cover for them. We need more health care coverage for the American people.''

The White House-backed measure, rejected by the Senate June 8, would give Americans broad new authority to sue their HMOs for denial of care. The vote was 51-48, with four Republicans joining 44 Democrats in support of the bill. If the Republican vote count slipped to 50, Vice President Al Gore could step in to cast a winning vote.

Similar legislation sponsored by Reps. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., and John Dingell, D-Mich., cleared the House last year with the support of most Democrats and many Republicans.

Clinton cited an analysis of the Republican bill, conducted by Rutgers and George Washington universities at Dingell's request, and said, ''The Senate bill would be even worse than the current law. It would effectively wipe out protections that states like Missouri have already passed and replace them with provisions that would make it more difficult to hold plans accountable for harmful decisions.''

Clinton flew to Missouri from an overnight stay at his home in Chappaqua, N.Y. Before returning to Washington, the president stopped at a barbecue restaurant with Carnahan and his wife, Jean.

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On the Net:

Clinton remarks: www.whitehouse.gov

Information on Missouri law: www.dss.state.mo.us/wreform/hb355.htm