NEW YORK -- President Clinton turned thumbs down Monday on a broad-based tax to finance health-care reform.
It would be an "unfair" extra burden on people already paying for insurance, he said.
"Why should we have a broad-based tax in which you pay even more money for health care . . . for the employed uninsured," he said.
House Ways and Means chairman Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., has said a "broad-based tax" may be needed to extend health insurance to everyone.
Clinton proposed only a 75-cent hike in the cigarette tax.
He acknowledged that an insurance industry ad campaign, attacking his plan's mandatory consumer purchasing cooperatives, has been effective - but said the co-ops aren't dead.
And he praised a bill unveiled Monday by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., as "a good starting point" because it has coverage for everybody.
"Even the smallest firms have to assume some responsibility," Clinton said.
The Kennedy bill would exempt firms with five or fewer workers from being required to provide insurance. Instead, they'd pay a 2% payroll tax.
Clinton, in New York to promote health care, stopped at a Pathmark supermarket where officials unveiled a shopping bag with a message supporting employer-paid health benefits.
The bag will be used for the next four weeks at Pathmark's 143 stores in the Northeast.
