To your health.

• Author: Feldman, Michael
• Position: The politics of health care reform - Column

Well, maybe it wasn't a health-care crisis after all; maybe we were just a bit under the weather. The way things were going, I wasn't even surprised when the watered-down version of the health plan--stay warm and drink plenty of fluids--was blocked by the Republican leadership. Now I understand they want "in sickness and in health" out of the marriage vows.

The last report from Mrs. Clinton's task force--"three quarters of a cup of brown sugar and not a cup as stated earlier"--illustrated the degree to which the issue had gotten away from the Administration. The flak from all sides took its toll; I don't think I was alone in beginning to feel I would be the single payer in a single-payer system, or that managed care could manage without me. My Jimmy Carter malaise even began acting up again (especially after getting a look at Mrs. Cedras).

The political maneuvering was occasionally brilliant; you've got to hand it to Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich for coming up with the notion that everything is a preexisting condition. For President Clinton there isn't a great deal to salvage from the process, although the health-care card would do nicely to slip the lock on a closed clinic door.

While the sheer scale of the original proposal may have led to its annihilation, after all, it wouldn't have been a comprehensive plan if it didn't have something to alarm everybody. Doctors complained long and hard about having been left out of the decision-making. Perhaps so, but in an age when only Dr. Kevorkian makes house calls and magnetic resonance imagers have filled the void left by x-ray shoe machines, it's nice to see them take an interest in health care again. Small business owners weren't excited about becoming health-care providers, and you've got to admit it's a leap of faith to imagine the same guy who hasn't changed the Krackles in the break room vending machine since the late 1980s taking responsibility for your health and well-being.

Initially, the insurance industry was in a panic. Who could blame it, with all those dependents in state legislatures and Congress to look after? That's a lot of mouths to feed, not to mention guaranteed insurance jobs when they get out (even though some of these guys have a demonstrated inability...