Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton predicted that Barack Obama would prevail in his bid to win passage of his health-care initiative and that some Republican senators likely would support the legislation.

Clinton, the last president to attempt a broad overhaul of health care, said the Obama administration could win over Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans from Maine. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus introduced an $856 billion plan yesterday that would require just about all U.S. citizens to have insurance or pay a penalty.

“It would be good if he could get some Republican support,” Clinton, 63, said in an interview yesterday in New York, speaking of the Baucus bill. “I believe he’ll get Snowe and he could get Collins and he might get three or four others.”

Clinton said the legislation proposed by Baucus, a Montana Democrat, was as far-reaching as the Senate would accept. Some Democrats have criticized the proposal because it doesn’t include a “public option” for a government-run insurance program that would compete with private carriers.

The finance committee is the last of five congressional panels to grapple with legislation intended to expand coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and rein in health- care costs, which account for a sixth of the U.S. economy. The plans being considered would mark the most sweeping changes in the nation’s medical-care system in more than four decades.

Clinton said potential Republican support for the bill could end up evaporating.

‘I’ve Seen It’

“If they believe a bill is going to pass, some of them will vote for it,” Clinton said. “And if they believe they have a chance to keep any bill from passing, they will be put under excruciating pressure to vote against whatever is there for reasons that have nothing to do with health care and have everything to do with politics. I’ve been through this. I’ve seen it.”

Clinton’s health-care plan failed to win passage in Congress, a defeat that many Democrats believe contributed to Republicans winning control of the House and Senate in the 1994 mid-term elections.

Obama, 48, has had conversations with Clinton since taking office and had lunch with the former president in New York just days after Obama delivered his Sept. 9 speech on health care to Congress.

Asked about an unemployment rate that reached a 26-year high of 9.7 percent last month, Clinton said the most effective way to rapidly boost jobs would be to expand infrastructure and clean-energy programs.

Savings on Utilities

“We could put millions of people to work if we were properly mobilized to do it, and we could pay for most of this work through savings on utility bills,” Clinton said. Clinton promoted a large-scale program to refurbish buildings for energy efficiency during his 1993-2001 presidency.

“When we’re ready to put electric cars on the market, we could do the equivalent of ‘cash for clunkers’ for the electric cars,” he said, referring to the government’s recent vehicle trade-in program. “I like ‘cash for clunkers’ just because it put the car people back in business.”

Clinton said the Obama administration’s best hope to reduce the budget deficit is to focus on reviving the economy while maintaining discipline in spending.

“If you’re going to expend revenues or reduce them coming in, you have to replace them,” he said. He endorsed Obama’s call for “pay-as-you-go” budget rules that would require that future spending increases or tax cuts be paid for with revenue increases.

Economic Strategy

Still, he said progress on the deficit would mostly turn on the success of Obama’s economic strategy. “The better the economy is, the quicker you’ll balance the budget,” Clinton said.

The deficit will total $1.6 trillion this year as revenue falls and the government spends at the fastest pace in 57 years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last month.

The gap will be equal to 11.2 percent of the economy, the biggest since World War II. The shortfall is largely attributable to the financial crisis, which has reduced tax revenue even as the government increased spending on stimulus programs and bailouts for financial companies and automakers, the CBO said.

Investor concern about the deficit, which has widened from $455 billion in 2008, has contributed to the weakness of the dollar. The trade-weighted Dollar Index has fallen 12 percent since Obama’s inauguration in January. The index measures the currency’s performance against the euro, yen, pound, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc and Swedish krona.

Budget Surpluses

Under Clinton, the budget balance swung to a surplus of $236 billion in 2000, his last full year in office, from a deficit of $290 billion deficit in 1992 during the final year of the George H.W. Bush presidency. The Dollar Index rose 21 percent in the Clinton years.

Clinton said his philanthropic organization, the Clinton Global Initiative, may generate less money this year because of a decline in donations for clean-energy projects, even as the number of pledges increases.

“The number of commitments is already up,” Clinton said. “The dollar value will probably be down because our dollar values in the past have been inflated, if you will, by the clean-energy projects and they’re the most expensive.”

Last year Clinton secured $8 billion in commitments from participants in the summit. This year, Obama will deliver a keynote address.

To contact the writer on this story: Patrick Cole in New York at pcole3@.bloomberg.net; Thomas R. Keene in New York tkeene@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 18, 2009 00:00 EDT