The American Medical Association may have misgivings about requiring employers to pay for health insurance, but the White House says 10 other doctors' groups with more than 300,000 members are supporting its reform proposals.
President Clinton, noting that almost 39 million Americans were without health insurance at some point last year, defended his insistence on universal coverage and comprehensive benefits. To Republican critics he asked Wednesday, "What's your answer to the fact that the number of uninsured Americans is going up every single day?"Clinton and his wife Hillary were staging a White House event Thursday with leaders of 10 medical groups, including the major primary care organizations, that have been far more supportive of the Clinton Health Security Act than the AMA.
The groups are: the American Academy of Family Physicians; American Academy of Pediatrics; American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; American College of Physicians; American College of Preventive Medicine; American Medical Women's Association; American Society of Internal Medicine; American Thoracic Society; National Hispanic Medical Association and the National Medical Association.
The 296,000-member AMA, at a meeting in New Orleans last week, backed off on its support of a requirement that employers help pay for insurance - a cornerstone of Clinton's proposal.
Meanwhile, Families USA, a liberal group working to promote passage of Clinton's plan, released a report Thursday that catalogs what it called the major gains that millions of Americans would realize under the White House reform blueprint.
It said the bill would guarantee coverage for 54 million Americans by 1998 who would otherwise lose it or lack insurance entirely and provide new drug benefits for 53 million. By 2001, it said, 121 million people would gain dental coverage and 153 million would get new or expanded coverage for mental illness and treatment of substance abuse.
The White House released documents Wednesday indicating it expects 500,000 wealthy retirees to drop Medicare coverage for doctor bills because the Clinton plan would raise their premiums.