Gephardt would give health insurance to all
Business groups, GOP line up to condemn candidate's plan
By Scott Shepard
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, April 24, 2003
NEW YORK -- Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dick Gephardt unveiled a sweeping and expensive plan Wednesday to extend health insurance to 41 million Americans who lack coverage, making it the centerpiece issue of his presidential campaign and calling it the "moral issue of our time."
In a speech before members of New York's largest health care union, and later in an informal meeting with political reporters, the veteran Missouri congressman also said that his plan would stimulate the sluggish economy by easing the health insurance burden for employers.
Gephardt attacked President Bush's economic leadership in unusually harsh terms as he called for the repeal of all of Bush's tax cuts in order to pay for the health care plan, which could cost more than $200 billion a year. His attacks, combined with the sweep of his proposal, underscored his intent to distinguish himself from the Democratic presidential pack as well as from the president.
"When voters think of the word 'bold,' they don't automatically think of Dick Gephardt, so that's part of what he's trying to do here -- to shed that reputation," said Jack Pitney, a former Republican strategist who now teaches political science at Claremont McKenna College in California.
Gephardt's proposal drew immediate criticism from the Republican National Committee and business lobbying groups as well as one of the congressman's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont. Dean, a physician, has been advocating his own approach to universal health care coverage for more than a year.
Gephardt said the first bill he would send to Congress as president would be a measure to require every company to provide health insurance for its employees, with 60 percent of the cost paid by a tax credit of double the current deduction for companies with health care costs.
"This is the right way to stimulate the economy -- not knee-jerk tax cuts that do nothing but pay off George Bush's wealthy campaign contributors while killing economic growth," Gephardt said.
For unemployed Americans, Gephardt would expand various existing federal programs, including the Children's Health Insurance Program, to make it possible for them to buy insurance.
"Today in this country there is a great divide -- a Grand Canyon between those who have health coverage and those who do not," he said. "And for too many, trying to cross from one side to the other is a hopeless pursuit."
The Republican National Committee released a statement comparing Gephardt's health care plan to the one proposed by the Clinton administration in 1994, saying "Tried, tested, rejected."
Dan Danner, a senior official of the National Federation of Independent Business, which lobbies on behalf of small business, charged that Gephardt's plan, by repealing Bush's tax cuts, "would impose one of the largest tax hikes in American history."
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