With less than a week before Missouri’s presidential primary, a group of mostly St. Louis-area lawmakers gathered at the Capitol Wednesday to make a pitch for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.

The lawmakers included: Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, and Reps. Bruce Darrough, D-Florissant; Esther Haywood, D-Bellerive; Trent Skaggs, D-North Kansas City; Michael Spreng, D-Florissant; and Rachel Storch, D-St. Louis.

Bray is the co-chairperson for Clinton’s Missouri campaign. She said the plan gives people three choices for health care coverage: they can either keep their company-provided plan, they can join a plan based on was Congress members receive or they can have a government-provided plan.

“It is a well thought-out plan,” she said. “It’s a way of getting everybody included.”

The lawmakers generally avoided discussing Clinton’s chief rival, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, other than to say his plan would not provide universal coverage.

“We think that’s a serious difference,” Storch said.

Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards dropped out of the Democratic contest today, creating a two-person race. Missouri will join more than 20 states that will vote on next week’s Super Tuesday.

Clinton’s plan has an up-front cost of about $120 billion, but she has proposed several savings initiatives, including electronic record-keeping, which Skaggs said could save about $40 billion.

Skaggs said that the savings would lower providers’ costs, allowing businesses to negotiate lower premiums for consumers. He said that providers’ profit margins would essentially remain the same.

Darrough said one cost pressure on the current system is the fact that many companies are trimming their health care plans and some small businesses are dropping them entirely. This puts a larger burden on those who keep their coverage, he said.

Clinton’s plan also calls for rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 a year.

Skaggs helped start Kansas City-based Hospital Management Consulting, which manages many rural hospitals across the state. He said many providers would probably support the plan.

“Providers would rather people be insured than not insured,” he said. “Look at Insure Missouri; the providers are supportive because they’re creating access.”

Skaggs was referring to Gov. Matt Blunt’s health care proposal – which many state Republicans say is DOA – that would cover about 200,000 Missourians once fully implemented.

Storch said that Clinton’s plan should play well among Missouri Democrats: “We know what it’s like in Missouri when an administration does not provide adequate health care.”

Bray mentioned that she favors a national health care system over a state program because a national plan would simply cover more people.