Editorials

Thursday, April 25, 1996

Health-care bill would deal
with a vital need

PROBABLY the worst fiasco of the Clinton presidency was the clumsy attempt to pass a comprehensive health insurance program. Put together in secret by a team headed by Clinton college chum Ira Magaziner, under the nominal direction of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the plan was so stupefyingly complicated and devoid of popular support that it sank without a trace.

The lesson from that exercise in overreach was to lower one's sights and tackle one or no more than a few aspects of the problem at a time. That is what the Republican-controlled Congress is doing. It is nearing passage of legislation that would ensure that workers who lose or leave their jobs can keep their health insurance.

This implements the concept of portability, and it is essential in a dynamic economy in which people no longer can count on staying with the same employer for life. The prospect of losing health insurance as the result of a job change can be daunting.

The Senate has now passed its version of the measure by a resounding 100-0, but there are significant differences with the version approved earlier by the House, which contained provisions for so-called medical savings accounts.

These would allow persons with high-deductible health-care plans to accrue tax-deductible savings in special accounts dedicated to paying medical expenses.

The idea is to encourage people to use health-care services sparingly by giving them a financial incentive to exercise restraint. The problem is that the accounts would benefit mainly the wealthy and people in good health and might even work to the disadvantage of people needing treatment.

Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the lead sponsors of the bill in the Senate, successfully opposed an attempt by Majority Leader Bob Dole to insert medical savings accounts in the measure. However, Dole says he may revive the issue in the conference committee.

The issue is a divisive one and should be set aside in order to preserve the overall measure and spare it from a presidential veto. Speaker Newt Gingrich has suggested that the House would not insist on the accounts in conference.

This is a chance for Washington to make amends for the embarrassing fiasco of the Clinton health-care plan. It should not be endangered by insistence on a provision of such questionable value.


Other editorials, in brief:

Auto insurance costs

GOVERNOR Cayetano says he wants to encourage business activity but he has taken an anti-business position on auto insurance reform. The governor objects to a proposed compromise under consideration by a House-Senate conference committee that would drop a House plan to shift medical costs for auto-accident injuries to the state's prepaid health insurance system. Cayetano's approach might help motorists, but it could mean fewer and lower-paying jobs for Hawaii's workers.


Justice nine years late

FEAR of crime led many New Yorkers to identify with Bernhard Goetz, who turned his gun on four young black men who he said were trying to mug him in a downtown Manhattan subway train 12 years ago. A jury in 1987 refused to convict him of a serious crime for the shooting, finding him guilty only of a minor firearms violation. But nine years later a different jury has determined in a civil case that the shooting was unjustified. The verdict will stand as a symbolic victory, indicating that America's attitude toward crime has become more sober and sensible.





Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips,CEO

John M. Flanagan,Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro,Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang,Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner,Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser,Contributing Editor



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