Clinton, Schwarzenegger at Odds Over Illegal Aliens' Health Care

Senator Clinton's announcement that her "universal" health care plan will not cover illegal aliens puts her at odds with Governor Schwarzenegger of California on that issue, as well as some of her most prominent backers in the Hispanic community.

"Illegal immigrants would not be covered," Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said yesterday on ABC's "This Week" program. "I will continue to have a safety net, which I think is in the best traditions of our country and, also, for public health reasons, absolutely necessary. But we did not cover them in '93–'94, and my plan does not cover them now."

Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican who is pushing his own so-called universal health care proposal for his state, has dismissed as short-sighted criticism of his plan for extending coverage to the children of illegal immigrants.

"The real question here is not do we cover them or not cover them, but do we treat them in emergency rooms at three or four times the cost of a doctor's office or health clinic, or should we be treating them more efficiently and more cost-effectively," the governor said in June at a forum on political centrism. "Let us recognize the reality of the situation and deal with it practically."

Mr. Schwarzenegger noted that federal law gives hospital emergency rooms "no choice" but to treat illegal migrants. He also said he thinks that law is a wise one.

Mr. Schwarzenegger's salvo was directed at members of his own party, but his words would also seem to serve as a retort to Mrs. Clinton, who has managed to land to the Republican governor's right on a volatile immigration-related issue.

In the ABC interview, Mrs. Clinton did not say why she was omitting coverage for illegals. A spokesman for her campaign did not respond to several requests yesterday seeking an explanation of her position. Another Democratic presidential hopeful, John Edwards, has also excluded illegal aliens from his health plan.

One political analyst said Mrs. Clinton's decision not to promote health coverage for illegal migrants indicates that she is changing her focus to moderate, swing voters because she is increasingly confident that she will win the Democratic nomination.

"This woman is now running the general election campaign," Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the University of Southern California said. "In a general election, you've got to move beyond the Democratic base, and that's what this is all about." Mrs. Clinton's decision could also be a headache for two of her campaign's national co-chairs, the speaker of the California Assembly, Fabian Nuñez, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles. Both have generally favored expanding health coverage for immigrants. "It puts some of the strong and visible Latino leaders in a very uncomfortable position," Ms. Jeffe said.

Mr. Nuñez issued a somewhat cryptic statement last week, which praised Mrs. Clinton for her "leadership" on health care but stopped short of endorsing her plan. Aides to Messrs. Nuñez and Villaraigosa did not respond to messages seeking comment for this article.

When Mrs. Clinton rolled out her health plan last Monday, a key aide, Laurie Rubiner, said no decision had been made about how to handle illegal migrants. "That's one we're going to have to think through a little bit," she said. "We have not dealt with every single detail with this plan."

However, an aide to Mrs. Clinton noted that, two days later, the senator made her stance on the issue clear in an interview with a Spanish news agency, EFE. "My health plan does not cover illegal immigrants right now," she said in the EFE dispatch, which was carried in Spanish and escaped the notice of the English-language press. The news agency said Mrs. Clinton linked the possibility of future coverage to an overhaul of immigration laws.