President S Health

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton announced a crackdown on Medicare fraud yesterday, targeting the burgeoning home health care market that accounts for a rapidly growing share of federal spending on the elderly.Under the president's plan, Medicare will stop signing up new home health care providers while the Health Care Financing Administration devises new regulations to better screen applicants."During this moratorium, we'll develop tough new regulations to ensure that no fly-by-night providers enter or remain in the Medicare program," Clinton told the Service Employees International Union in Washington.

WASHINGTON -- Veteran movie-goers will probably agree that sequels are rarely as good as the original. This is especially so when the original is a real bell-ringer, although that doesn't seem to stop Hollywood from making them.The political equivalent of a Hollywood smash hit was the 1992 bus tour of Democratic nominees Bill Clinton and Al Gore coming out of the Democratic National Convention in New York.It was such a popular success, drawing such big and enthusiastic crowds almost everywhere, that several other trips of varying lengths were conducted and came to be known in the lingo of the younger generation as "Bill and Al's Excellent Adventure."

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's State of the Union speech drew both praise and criticism last night with Democrats applauding his promise to push both health care and welfare reform this year and Republicans warning that he would bring more big government."

RECALCULATING -- The Clinton administration has reduced its estimate of how much revenue it expects to raise from taxes for its health-reform package, White House adviser Ira Magaziner said yesterday.The White House originally estimated that taxes on cigarettes and a 1 percent corporate levy would raise $105 billion by the year 2000, including $12 billion in 1994 alone. But that assumed Congress would pass health reform by the end of this year. Mr. Magaziner said the administration is looking to spring or summer, meaning that the 1994 fiscal year "is for all intents and purposes gone."

The proposal is vast and complex, as befits a plan that's supposed to do no less than profoundly change America's health care system. The jargon is obscure: "universal access" and and "quality indicators" and "market forces." And the economic theories that underpin the whole package -- they're brilliant or baffling, depending on whom you ask.The plan President Clinton sketched out last night has straightforward goals: security for everyone, high-quality care and savings. But, despite the president's energetic efforts to simplify, the details are so dense that the White House convened a two-day "health care university" to school members of Congress.

WASHINGTON -- Armed with a stack of facts and more than a -- of charm, Hillary Rodham Clinton captivated two House committees yesterday but failed to conquer lawmakers' objections to her husband's health care reform plan.Despite an occasionally gushy reception, the first lady's first formal appearance as the administration's top lobbyist for the president's health care legislation seemed to sharpen the battle lines for the long siege that lies ahead.She provided only a few new details, including an assurance that Maryland can continue to operate its own system for setting hospital rates and controlling costs, and a one-word comment on whether the president would consider putting off action on the most controversial parts of his program until after next year's elections.

WASHINGTON -- The country's largest senior citizens group, alarmed by the growing possibility that the president's health reform plan won't substantially cover the elderly for long-term care, warned yesterday that it might withhold support for the plan.John Rother, legislative affairs director for the 33-million-member American Association of Retired Persons, said in an interview that it is "certainly possible" the administration could lose the organization's support if the plan doesn't include more than a modest benefit for long-term care.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration plans to kill a tax break that many Americans now use to lower their health care costs, according to White House officials.Under the administration's health care reform plan, the medical "flexible savings accounts," which now allow workers to use pretax savings to pay their medical bills, will be eliminated. That change will, in effect, result in a sharp tax increase for millions of American workers who now are able to shelter up to $5,000 a year from taxes in order to use those funds to pay bills to doctors and hospitals.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's sudden and vividly televised bout with the flu has once again turned a bright light on the question of the 67-year-old president's health and whether it may be an issue in the election campaign.Publicly, Democrats were following the predictably cautious course of wishing the president a speedy recovery while privately enjoying the prospect of fresh discussion of the qualifications of Vice President Dan Quayle.But the Democrats conceded that even if there were a political opening, they are powerless to exploit it. Unless the president has a continuing health problem, as opposed to an isolated episode of illness, the voters will be making their choice next November, as they did in 1988, on the relative strengths of the presidential candidates rather than on who might succeed them.

Any intimation of presidential mortality is cause for concern and grist for the political mill. George Bush's collapse at a state banquet in Tokyo may be nothing but a touch of tummy flu, one of the many bugs in epidemic proportion this winter. But it inevitably focuses attention on the president's health -- he suffered heart palpitations last March as a result of a thyroid condition -- and even more on the qualifications of Vice President Dan Quayle for the nation's highest office.Mr. Bush, at 67, is a hyper-physical individual, a person who delights in his lean physique and jogging and golfing or playing tennis at every opportunity.

WASHINGTON - - On a night reserved for laying out his vision of health care, President Barack Obama offered a spirited defense of his broad goals but continued to avoid making concrete commitments on some of the most contentious issues, including the so-called "public option." The president's reluctance to draw lines in the sand came even as lawmakers in his party have pleaded for clearer signals. But it reflected a guiding principle of the administration's health care strategy: to put off the most controversial decisions until the last moment.

If you're wondering what the ugly, pinched face of America looks like, just turn on the television, open a newspaper or fire up your laptop. Public mayhem, scare-mongering, and even a warning from the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee about a fictitious "death panel" are, apparently, what constitutes thoughtful discourse about health care coming from the darker corners of American conservatism. And naturally, any serious national conversation on a major policy issue must begin with a thorough discussion ... of the president's birth certificate.

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.

WASHINGTON - -Urging lawmakers to move quickly to overhaul American health care, President Barack Obama criticized the "politics of the moment" Tuesday and compared attempts to delay action on legislation with attempts to defeat it outright. Some in Congress are trying to put off decisions on legislation "until special interests can kill it," Obama charged during an appearance before reporters in the White House Rose Garden. "We can choose to follow that playbook again and then we'll never get over the goal line," the president said.

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Martin O'Malley sat tight-lipped through a White House meeting with President Bush yesterday and later criticized the president, saying he spent more time defending the administration's Iraq policy than addressing concerns about health care and immigration raised by the nation's governors. O'Malley, who has been attending his first meeting of the National Governors Association since being elected governor, participated in two hours of morning meetings with Bush Cabinet officials, followed by a half-hour session with the president.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton announced a crackdown on Medicare fraud yesterday, targeting the burgeoning home health care market that accounts for a rapidly growing share of federal spending on the elderly.Under the president's plan, Medicare will stop signing up new home health care providers while the Health Care Financing Administration devises new regulations to better screen applicants."During this moratorium, we'll develop tough new regulations to ensure that no fly-by-night providers enter or remain in the Medicare program," Clinton told the Service Employees International Union in Washington.

WASHINGTON -- Veteran movie-goers will probably agree that sequels are rarely as good as the original. This is especially so when the original is a real bell-ringer, although that doesn't seem to stop Hollywood from making them.The political equivalent of a Hollywood smash hit was the 1992 bus tour of Democratic nominees Bill Clinton and Al Gore coming out of the Democratic National Convention in New York.It was such a popular success, drawing such big and enthusiastic crowds almost everywhere, that several other trips of varying lengths were conducted and came to be known in the lingo of the younger generation as "Bill and Al's Excellent Adventure."

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton's State of the Union speech drew both praise and criticism last night with Democrats applauding his promise to push both health care and welfare reform this year and Republicans warning that he would bring more big government."

RECALCULATING -- The Clinton administration has reduced its estimate of how much revenue it expects to raise from taxes for its health-reform package, White House adviser Ira Magaziner said yesterday.The White House originally estimated that taxes on cigarettes and a 1 percent corporate levy would raise $105 billion by the year 2000, including $12 billion in 1994 alone. But that assumed Congress would pass health reform by the end of this year. Mr. Magaziner said the administration is looking to spring or summer, meaning that the 1994 fiscal year "is for all intents and purposes gone."

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration plans to kill a tax break that many Americans now use to lower their health care costs, according to White House officials.Under the administration's health care reform plan, the medical "flexible savings accounts," which now allow workers to use pretax savings to pay their medical bills, will be eliminated. That change will, in effect, result in a sharp tax increase for millions of American workers who now are able to shelter up to $5,000 a year from taxes in order to use those funds to pay bills to doctors and hospitals.