Care Reform

With the public clamoring for reform of managed health care, Gov. Parris N. Glendening is making the issue a priority as he begins to articulate his agenda for a second term.Glendening will visit a hospital and senior center today to announce a "Bill of Rights" for Maryland patients. Included will be a half-dozen legislative proposals by which the incumbent Democrat now hopes to put his imprint on the movement for reform."There have been a lot of growing pains for the managed care industry," said Peter S. Hamm, a spokesman for the Glendening campaign.

WASHINGTON -- The last time Congress took a break, Rep. John P. Sarbanes held a series of town hall gatherings at local libraries and a volunteer firehouse with his Baltimore-area constituents. This week, he conducted conference calls instead. Sarbanes said the "virtual" meetings allow him to reach thousands as he spends his August recess trying to convince constituents of the merits of Democratic health care ideas, compared with a few hundred who might show up at a school or community center.

To help guarantee health care reform that reduces costs and builds "health care teams that work" (to use President Barack Obama's words), pharmacists must play a key role in the planning process being undertaken by the federal government. The health care reform principles being considered are well grounded in developing strategies to promote the prevention and management of chronic diseases. Essential to the success of those strategies is the fully integrated role of pharmacists, the country's most accessible health care professionals.

Will President Barack Obama and Congress pass comprehensive health care reform this year? Yes 24% No 68% Not sure 8% (2,351 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Videos depicting members of Congress being shouted down at town hall meetings by health care reform opponents are making the rounds on the Internet and the TV news. Are these protests genuine or are they orchestrated by Republicans and the insurance industry? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Johns Hopkins University's public radio station will broadcast live four town meetings on health care reform, featuring leaders and specialists on the issues, and the public.The debate and discussion series will air on Wednesdays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on the Marc Steiner Show on WJHU-FM (88.1).It begins tonight with a program originating from Lecture Hall 5 at the University of Maryland Baltimore County's Engineering and Computer Science Building and focuses on the economics of health care reform.

It's big, it's bold and it's already being called the most lobbied bill in history.Bill Clinton put his presidency on the line last night with a health care reform proposal comparable in its reach to Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. That war ended in stalemate, and plenty of critics are hoping for an even worse fate for the Clinton health care reform. Considering the vested interests threatened by the plan and the sheer size of the health care industry, the chances that any final plan will closely resemble the initial proposal are slim.

One of the ironic results of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski's decision to fight his 17-count indictment (see above editorial) is that it permits him to remain a key player much valued by the White House in the drive for health care reform. Had the Illinois Democrat accepted the plea bargain discussed last week by government prosecutors and his defense lawyers, the resulting felony conviction would have forced him to resign from Congress on the instant. As it is, he will have to give up his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee but will likely remain an influential figure.

NOW THAT President Clinton has finally lifted the lid off his health-care reform program, we can see that it is top-heavy with contingencies that present a broad target to its enemies.And so we move to the next stage, in which progress in health care reform as well as the success of the Clinton presidency will be measured -- daily, tediously, incrementally and to the great trial of our patience -- as this great beast lumbers through Congress and its committees, having pieces of its carcass ripped and shredded by the interests who find offense in this part, a threat in another part, a general odiousness in the whole or who merely have a political disposition to deny the president any kind of victory.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's ambitious attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system, having faltered for months, finally collapsed yesterday for lack of support.Almost a year to the day after the reform proposal -- one of the most far-reaching social programs offered in decades -- was unveiled with great fanfare before a joint session of Congress, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell announced that he lacked the 60 votes needed to get even a modest version of the Clinton plan past a Republican filibuster.

WASHINGTON -- Lurking behind the uncertain prospects for some salvation of health care reform as Congress returns is the big question for President Clinton: Assuming some "incremental" legislation manages to pass, will he or won't he sign it?Although he has not openly abandoned his State-of-the-Union pledge to veto any plan that fails to cover every American with insurance that can never be taken away, he has already fudged on the question of timing.The utterings of both the president and the first lady over the summer have been marked by the hedge that any bill must be "moving toward" universal coverage to warrant his signature.