Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole is fond of saying the folks back in his hometown of Russell, Kan., don't want the government sitting in their doctors' offices with them.
But now Dole, like many other Republicans, is acknowledging that everyone wants something to change in the health-care system.
And he predicted that if Republicans don't join the debate, they'll be left behind.
"We're going to be up in the bleachers when the parade goes by unless we get our people together," said Dole, widely believed to be considering a run for president in 1996.
Gone from the health debate, at least right now, is the adversarial tone that marked its first months.
In its place are clearly conciliatory gestures from Dole, the Republican leader and chief antagonist in President Clinton's health-care push.
Said Clinton on Tuesday: "It's better for the American people if we work together and tone our rhetoric down."
Said Dole: "There is growing consensus among Republicans and Democrats . . . that we can improve our health-care system without destroying the quality and choice Americans expect - and without giving complete and total control to the federal government."
Now, instead of scare tactics and talk of delays in treatment, political leaders are having a genteel debate.
"Republicans are very interested in making some positive reforms," said Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., who has a reform bill that conservatives like because it puts the responsibility for having insurance on the individual, not the employer. "We don't want to see it do damage to the quality system we have."
But behind the politeness, a ferocious battle is looming over revamping one-seventh of the economy.
Republicans first tested a theme that brought them much attention, but appears to be falling flat.
"There is no health-care crisis," said GOP leaders, including Dole.
Now Republicans are softening the message.
"I've always thought the center is going to carry the day," said Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., co-sponsor with Dole of a Republican alternative.
With poll results showing many Americans believe there's a crisis in health care, some experts say Republicans looked a little foolish trying to convince the public there isn't.
"They went a bridge too far in terms of the language being used," said GOP pollster Bill McInturff.
Now, he said, they are casting about for a better way to define their position: Change, yes, but not the kind of change Clinton wants.
"What's somewhat inexplicable is why we dipped into 'Why there isn't a crisis,' " McInturff said. "There's fairly compelling research data that people think the health-care system is broken and they want it fixed. But I think the Clinton people misread it and overstepped the level of changes that people think (they) want fixed."
The trick for the Republicans, said McInturff, is to rebalance the debate and define what the changes ought to be.
White House spokesman Jeff Eller said it's too early to tell what the "new message environment" will be. But, he said:
"It's clear that they (Republicans) have seen a need to modify how they talk about health care that's significantly different than a week ago. I think the president's (State of the Union) speech had some effect on that."
Now, some Republicans are saying there is a crisis - a health insurance crisis, but only for those without coverage.
And Dole, who frequently cites his first-hand experience with the health-care system as a severely wounded World War II soldier and more recently with prostate cancer, said he's trying to move the debate away from finger-pointing rhetoric.
"I think we ought to drop the theatrics and talk about the problem," Dole told the National Governors' Association on Tuesday. "We have serious problems in health care."
Clinton called Dole's comments Tuesday "quite conciliatory."
But this week's spirit of conciliation went too far for Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., a key backer of Clinton's plan. He suggested Tuesday that the president had been collegial to the governors at the expense of his reform proposal and said his talk Monday of compromise on cost controls was "not particularly useful."
Clinton said later: "I would caution Sen. Rockefeller to not think that I have left his position."
The president told the National Governors' Association Tuesday: "Don't let Washington rhetoric pull the country apart."
He called the crisis/no crisis talk "a big linguistics battle" and said it's better to "focus on the facts."
Republican strategist Bill Kristol, one of the first to trumpet the "no crisis" theme, said the White House is "desperately trying to revive the crisis atmosphere."
"The crisis atmosphere is crucial to the Clinton plan's success, and I think there is not a health-care crisis. Republicans should be unembarrassed to say 'there's no crisis,' and much of the crisis atmosphere has been politically generated."
But Clinton adviser Paul Begala said the Democrats aren't going to let the Republicans off the hook on their "no crisis" mantra.
"They are flat-out wrong," he said. "It's perfectly illustrative of what's wrong with the Republican approach. These are the same people who said there was no recession."
