Politics

Hillary Hawks Health Care

April 19, 1999 / 4:36 PM EDT / AP

Hillary Rodham Clinton called for changes in the nation's medical insurance system on Tuesday at the same time she acknowledged her failed 1993 effort to reform health care.

"I'm not going to try that again, rest assured," she said in a speech at Hofstra University, adding: "I come from the school of smaller steps now."

Mrs. Clinton spoke on day two of her road trip to New York, where she is considering running for the U.S. Senate seat of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who is retiring.

She called for a patient's bill of rights to force health insurers to provide access to specialists; enhanced privacy regarding medical records; tax breaks to encourage small businesses to provide health insurance for employees; and support for President Clinton's proposal to shore up Medicare with part of the federal budget surplus.

Although Mrs. Clinton said nothing about her political plans, several others were talkative on the subject.

Judith Hope, chairwoman of the state's Democratic Party, said the first lady is giving her potential candidacy "very serious consideration ... She continues to look like a candidate, sound like a candidate while doing the valid work of a first lady."

Mrs. Clinton began Tuesday at the Village Elementary School in Syosset, where she watched third-graders observing tiny live frogs swimming in tanks.

She laughed when she was told that another first lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the Long Island school 41 years ago.

"I'm used to following Mrs. Roosevelt," she said. "I don't know that I've ever been anywhere in the world, literally, that she hadn't been first."