Budget a back door to `Clintoncare': Children's health insurance is similar to coverage pushed by Hillary in '93.(A)

0 Comments | Washington Times, The, August, 1997 | by Bedard, Paul

The $23.4 billion "Kid Care" health insurance program included in the budget package was to be the "precursor" to universal health care sought by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a secret White House fallback plan prepared in April 1993, according to internal administration documents. As an option drawn up by the first lady's health care task force, the White House plotted to push a "Kids First" insurance program as the start of a universal health care program if Mrs.

Clinton's grander effort failed, as it did. "This is absolutely their fallback position and it gets them gradually to where they wanted to be all along. The `Kids First' scheme is a template for what the president signed into law," said attorney Kent Masterson Brown, whose suit to open...