Control freaks.

AuthorPostrel, Virginia I.

Thanks to the profit-seeking souls at Times Books, you don't have to be a lobbyist or congressional aide to get your hands on the text of the Clinton health-care plan. You can go to the mall and pick up a 284-page paperback copy for $8.00. But judging from the way both supporters and opponents are describing it, even the pros haven't really read the plan.

When supporters talk about it, they sound like cheery personnel officers guiding new employees through company benefits packages. "We offer two choices of plans," they say. "There's the fee-for-service plan, where you have a $200 deductible, and the preferred provider network, where you pay only $10 a visit. Which would you like to sign up for? We recommend the cheaper one."

Opponents, on the other hand, make the Clinton plan sound like just another expensive entitlement scheme: Aid for Families with Dependent Sick People. They warn of heavy payroll taxes--if you like FICA, you'll love Clintoncare--and runaway costs. They talk about the deficit and lost jobs.

Both sides treat the health-care plan as the latest lavish program for taxing and spending. One side emphasizes the benefits, the other the costs. Neither gets to the real story.

Despite the neat charts you've probably seen reprinted in your local newspaper, most of those 284 pages have nothing to do with describing benefits. And very few talk about paying for them.

The Clinton plan isn't a simple transfer scheme. It is a systematic program for destroying the health-care industry and replacing it with regional cartels, government price caps, and mass, standardized medicine. It is not about handouts or subsidies, though it includes both. It is about unbridled, unaccountable bureaucratic rule.

Sure, the plan has its silly and expensive moments. It suggests coveting aerobics ("physical training classes") in the name of preventive care. It picks up everyone's therapist bills, promising a cost explosion unmatched since California started allowing worker's comp claims for "stress."

At its most absurd, the Clinton outline declares that "health plans may not terminate, restrict or limit coverage for the comprehensive benefit package for any reason, including non-payment of premiums." (Emphasis added.) It's easy to see where that will lead. Why pay when you can get the same care for free?

But the heart of the plan is not expensive indulgences. It is, rather, an attack on choice and competition. In page after mind-numbing page of bureaucratic...

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