Judi Hasson Republicans in Congress are seeking common ground on health-care reform to capitalize on Democrats' disarray.
While President Clinton's allies struggle to get his top priority out of the starting gate next week, his GOP opponents are plotting against him.
Their effort - exemplified by today's closed-door retreat in Annapolis, Md., for Republican governors, senators and House members - may further weaken Clinton's chance of winning passage of a comprehensive package this year.
"It's worrisome to me," says House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo.
If the GOP opts for a "minimalist approach" to reform, Gephardt says, "then I think we're in real difficulty."
The Republican retreat was organized by Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., whose support for requiring all Americans to be insured makes him key to Democrats' hopes of passing reform.
But most of the participants, including top GOP leaders, favor a more incremental approach with less regulation.
While the House is operating faster than the Senate on health care, with one panel hoping to act next week, moderate House Democrats don't want to vote on new spending or higher taxes if the Senate is unlikely to follow suit. That happened last year when an energy tax approved by the House died in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the Health Care Reform Project, a coalition of business, consumer, labor and provider groups, launched a counteroffensive Thursday against insurance industry ads attacking Clinton's plan.
The group will run two television ads supporting the president's approach to health reform over the next several weeks, at a cost of $ 750,000.
"Some insurance companies oppose real health-care reform, but it wasn't designed for them. It was designed for you," one ad says.
Says the second: "The president's approach guarantees affordable private insurance to everyone at work, whether you change jobs, get sick or work part time." Such coverage, it says, is "an American tradition to build on."
"We're trying to fill the information vacuum," says John Rother of the American Association of Retired Persons, who chairs the group.
Also Thursday, the Children's Defense Fund - echoing a key objective of the Clinton plan - said that if current trends continue, only about half the nation's children will be covered under their parents' employer-provided health insurance by 2000.
