President Clinton's dream of reforming the nation's health- care system took its first baby step forward Wednesday by the smallest of margins.
The House Ways and Means Committee's health subcommittee voted 6-5 for a revised version of Clinton's plan providing health insurance for all.
"We have met the president's goals," said chairman Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif., author of the revision.
But changes are ahead for the package - which expands Medicare to include the poor, unemployed and some small-business employees, forces employers to pay 80% of workers' insurance costs and caps all health care expenditures:
-- The full Ways and Means Committee takes up health care next month. Its chairman, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., says he'll rewrite the financing, which includes a $ 1.25 boost in the tax on a pack of cigarettes.
-- Four other committees will write their own plans.
-- The final version will be written by Democratic leaders later this year - and may bear little resemblance to the plan advanced Wednesday night.
Rostenkowski predicted in today's Washington Post that the final bill will be "much more conservative" and may not contain the universal coverage Clinton insists upon.
Several alternatives failed to pass the subcommittee before the final vote, including the leading Republican plan and a government-financed system favored by liberal Democrats.
Clinton's plan - offered by Republicans - got no votes. Panel Republicans voted "no"; Democrats, opposed to parts of it, voted "present."
"It's an egregious Republican attempt to embarrass the president," said Stark.
