Another pretty good article/report on the Billary Power Grab....
..... courtesy of the Heritage Foundation - reprinted with permission.


The Heritage Foundation --  A Special Report

The Clinton Health Plan:   A Prescription for Big Government

We all know socialism when we see it:  The Berlin Wall. The
Kremlin. Castro's Cuba. Red China. But what does it sound like?
Try these:  Standard Benefits Package. National Health Board.
Regional Alliances. Managed Competition. Gatekeepers. Price
Controls. These are the sounds of the Clinton health plan -- and
of socialized medicine.

Do you believe the Clintons when they tell you their health plan
is based on free markets and consumer choice? Guess again.
Because no matter how much the Clintons talk about
competition, freedom of choice, and high quality care, under
their health plan it will be the government -- and not the
consumer -- that decides who gets what treatment, under what
circumstances, and at what cost.

Anyone who thinks that a huge new bureaucracy and sweeping new
regulations -- the heart and soul of the Clinton plan -- will
reduce health-care paperwork should check out why our health
system has so many problems now. Among the biggest problems:
bureaucracy and regulation.

Anyone who thinks it will be easy to choose a doctor that isn't
part of the health care co-op each of us will be assigned to is
kidding himself.

Anyone who thinks the government can manage America's $900
billion a year health care industry -- larger than the entire
economy of France -- must have missed the 75-year rise and
fall of Soviet state socialism.

And anyone who reads the 1,342-page Clinton plan (details to
follow) and sees simplified health care needs glasses -- although
no one is sure if the plan covers eyeglasses or not.

THE CLINTON HEALTH PLAN

What makes the Clinton plan so dangerous is that it sounds so
reasonable -- even friendly. President Clinton has relied on the
rhetoric of security, open markets, and free choice in
introducing his health plan to the American people, but the devil
is in the details. What the plan really represents is the
centralization of health care. The Clinton health plan is
actually the largest power grab made by the federal government
over a sector of the American economy since the New Deal. The
President's plan promises top-down, command-and-control
micromanagement of one-seventh of the national economy.

National Health Board. The first of the key elements of the
Clinton plan is the establishment of a "National Health Board,"
(NHB) which will oversee virtually every aspect of the health
care system. This board will determine, for example, what
benefits will be included in health care benefit packages, and
which will not. It will determine levels of treatment. It will
determine what changes in technology will be made available in
health insurance plans, and which will be excluded. The NHB will
be, without doubt, one of the most powerful federal agencies ever
created.

In addition to its immense national powers, the board will have
oversight responsibility for the individual state organizations
that will administer the health plan. It is useful to think of
this presidentially appointed, seven-member group as the "Supreme
Court" of health care; they can make or review every major
decision in the health care system. The board will be the final
judge of who gets what health care, at what cost, and under what
conditions.

Region Health Alliances. The creation of the NHB is only the
first stage of development in the huge new bureaucracy that will
manage every aspect of American health services. The next
phase is the network of "regional health alliances" that the
Clinton plan will set up in each state. In fact, Laura Tyson, the
President's own Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors,
recently estimated that it will require 50,000 new bureaucrats to
staff these alliances!

The regional alliances will decide which plans can and cannot
compete in their states based on criteria set by the NHB. This is
a crucial point, because while the President and his advisors
talk constantly of giving consumers choice among health care
options, in fact, under the Clinton plan, with very few
exceptions, the choice is limited to only the options the
alliances will permit. The state-based health alliances, by not
allowing some plans to compete, will effectively limit choices
for those seeking health care. Choices will be further limited
because many doctors will be forced out of private practice due
to the restrictive new regulations. Eventually, private
practioners will probably be available only to the very wealthy.
When the Clintons talk about "managed competition," they
aren't kidding.

Employer Mandate. An employer mandate is another key element of
the Clinton health plan -- in other words, the real cost of the
Clinton plan will be borne by businesses. All employers and
their employees will be required to pay insurance premiums to
their local alliance, with the employers bearing some 80 percent
of the cost. There is no choice here; employers will pay, and
pay dearly--anywhere from 3.5 to 7.9 percent in additional
payroll taxes for small businesses. Large corporations--those
employing more than 5,000 workers -- will also be hit by
additional costs; there are no limits on their additional
health-care payroll contributions during the first four
years the plan is in effect, and after that, the caps are phased
in gradually. Such cost increases are bound to cause additional
unemployment in both large and small businesses. And since every
citizen will be required to have generous benefit coverage,
regardless of their employment status, the employed will end up
footing the bill for the unemployed -- whether they choose to or
not.

Global Budget. A third key principle of the Clinton plan is the
"global budget" for health care spending. This federally imposed
budget will limit all annual spending on health care, both public
(as in Medicare and Medicaid), and private. The goal of this
budgeting is to limit health care spending nationwide, so that
over the next few years, health-care spending will ratchet down,
eventually equalling the growth in the consumer price index. This
plan sounds reasonable, but with a national health-care budget,
the only ways to come up with these savings in health care
expenditures are to impose price controls and limit services:
That means rationing. And rationing means that some citizens will
not receive the care they need or want when they desire it.

The inevitable result of the Clinton scheme will be a health care
system that discriminates against sick patients in favor of
healthy ones, and a tidal wave of new bureaucratic wrangling
between doctors, hospitals, and insurers--the very problems the
Clintons say the plan is designed to curtail. The Clinton plan
reduces the individual patient to just a small cog in a huge
machine. Resources in the system will be determined by
negotiations between large, organized groups of providers
and big insurers, not by the consumer who is paying for the
system, nor by the doctor treating the patient.

And how will the government pay for the Clinton scheme? Nobody
knows--not even the Administration. One White House spokesman put
it this way: "How you get there is a detail ... Let the details
work themselves out."  The President is counting on savings from
price controls and cutbacks in other programs, in spite of the
historic failure of these tactics. Additional "sin" taxes
cannot possibly meet the plan's future costs. The President may
not want to get bogged down in the details, but they are
important -- especially to the taxpayers.


WHAT THE CLINTON HEALTH PLAN MEANS FOR YOU

For most Americans, all the talk of budgets, alliances, managed
care and universal coverage boils down to one question: "What
does the Clinton plan mean for me?"

That's why many Americans were alarmed when Secretary of Health
and Human Services Donna Shalala recently admitted to the
Congress that some 40 percent of those now insured will pay more
for health care under the Clinton plan. And while the uninsured
may obtain health coverage they now lack, many Americans will see
their medical freedom restricted, their health-care provider
choices dwindle, their care decline, and their insurance premiums
and taxes rise. Because of the huge increase in costs to
employers, and the inevitable layoffs that will follow, some will
even pay with their jobs.


Forget the Clinton promises: Your health-care choices will be
limited under their plan. Many Americans will no longer be able
to buy the kind of health insurance they prefer. In fact, we will
be forced by law to purchase care from the regional alliance.
Independently seeing a specialist or contracting privately with a
physician will become more difficult as private practitioners are
forced into the alliance system, or even out of medicine. Your
doctor may not be able to prescribe special treatment or testing
for fear of being punished by the government. You may wait months
for treatment you now receive quickly and take for granted.

Are you a minimum-wage worker?  This group will be especially
hard-hit by the employer-based insurance the Clintons insist on.
Some experts believe that as many as three million mimimum
wage workers will lose their jobs because of the requirement for
employers to provide health care coverage to all employees -- the
requirement simply makes the cost of keeping a minimum wage
employee too high.

Finally, who will pay for the Clinton health plan? Be very clear
about this -- you will. The Clintons will have to go a lot
further than taxing smokers to come up with the necessary
cash to finance their proposal. Don't count on savings from
Medicare and Medicaid, as the Clintons do -- those programs have
been over budget for years. And don't look for big savings
from the so-called "streamlining" of health care. The White House
is creating a huge new bureaucracy, and bureaucracies cost money.
The bottom line is that the taxpayers -- you, your family, and
your business, will pick up a big share of the tab.

Feeling better?

CONSUMER CHOICE:  A NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM FOR ALL AMERICANS

Hillary Rodham Clinton has it. Ted Kennedy and his staff have it.
Cabinet Secretaries and your local mailman have it. So why can't
all Americans have what they have?

What do these politicians and federal employees have that other
Americans don't, but should? The answer is a health benefits
system that allows them to choose among dozens of competing
health care insurers and providers;  works with a minimum of
regulation;  is very, very popular; and, because it relies on the
principles of choice and competition, has successfully controlled
costs.

The system is the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
(FEHBP), which covers nearly ten million federal employees and
retirees, including all members of Congress. Though it is not
perfect, FEHBP provides a prototype for health care reform that
uses market competition and consumer choice to hold down prices.

Under the Clinton plan, a national board would specify a
comprehensive package of benefits we must have. By contrast under
the FEHBP, the workers decide for themselves which services they
want included and which they do not. Once a year they receive
information on all the plans available where they live --
typically two to three dozen. The cost of premiums, out-of-pocket
expenses and services -- it's all there in black and white.

Federal employees get plenty of advice on which plans are best, from
unions, retiree associations, advertising and the news media.
There is even an inexpensive, easy-to-understand guide
published each year by Washington Consumer's Checkbook, 
a consumer organization that rates other family purchases.

The FEHBP is a government program in name only. The government
doesn't fix the prices of premiums or specify a single standard
benefits package. Instead, it makes sure each plan meets
certain financial and truth-in-advertising standards, and acts as
a clearinghouse for premium payments. Costs are controlled not by
regulation but by individual Americans choosing plans on the
basis of price and services in a highly competitive market.

And competition works. In fact, the federal government recently
announced that premiums for the several hundred plans available
through the program would increase by an average of just
3 percent next year, that more than 40 percent of enrollees would
see decreases, and that many would even get "new or improved
preventive care services." Very few other health plans can
make such statements.


The FEHBP has worked for federal employees for 33 years, and
they're not willing to give it up without a fight. In fact,
pressure from the federal unions and Congress recently forced
President Clinton to abandon his plan to dismantle the FEHBP and
shift federal workers into a nationwide health care program; the
FEHBP is safe until at least 1998. Federal workers know they have
a great system: if the FEHBP works so well, why dismantle it at
all? And why should you settle for any less choice in health care
than your Congressman or mailman? Maybe it's time to expand
such a system to the rest of the citizens.

With minor modifications, an FEHBP-type system could be expanded
to cover all Americans. In fact, the Heritage Foundation's
Consumer Choice Health Plan is based on the same principles
that underlie the FEHBP: consumer choice and competition.

Columnist Michael Kinsley, writing in The New Republic and The
Washington Post, said: "The Heritage proposal should have great
appeal to principled liberals, as well as principled conserva-
tives."

Nationally syndicated columnist Paul Greenberg of The Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette wrote, "If the President is interested in a plan
that will provide universal coverage, allow Americans to take our
health insurance with us where ever we go and not tie it to our
jobs, give folks their choice of insurance plans from basic to
deluxe, control costs through competition, and use vouchers to
provide basic coverage for those too poor to pay premiums...all
the President has to do is call 202-5464400. That's the Heritage
Foundation."

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION CONSUMER CHOICE HEALTH PLAN

No one denies that America's health care system has problems, or
that reforms are needed. Costs are rising unnecessarily fast, due
mainly to the perverse incentives for patients and providers
under the current system. Job-related losses in coverage are a
huge worry for millions of Americans, because the tax code
effectively forces workers into company-sponsored plans. These
problems can be addressed with surgically precise changes in the
tax and insurance laws. But turning over the entire system to
central planners in the government is not the solution.

As an antidote to the Clinton prescription, The Heritage
Foundation has developed a plan to provide affordable access to
health care for every American. Devised by Heritage health care
experts Stuart Butler, Robert Moffit, and Edmund Haislmaier, the
strategy would supply health insurance for all through a
competitive market of health care plans and providers.  Consumers
would shop for coverage that meets their needs at a price they
can afford; they would have incentives to seek the best value for
their money when purchasing health care and insurance.

The current system gives Americans tax breaks for health care
only if they receive coverage through an insurance plan sponsored
by their employer. Thus the system offers consumers little
choice of insurance plans, penalizes them for buying routine
medical care directly out-of-pocket, and makes health coverage a
major consideration in changing jobs. Many people -- especially
the self-employed and part-time or low-wage workers -- are left
with little or no tax relief for their health expenses.

In contrast, the Heritage system would give the tax breaks
directly to the workers and their families. Low income Americans
would receive a medical voucher to allow them to purchase a
plan. This would allow people to choose their own health
insurance and retain it when they change jobs: In other words,
their insurance would be portable. In addition, out-of-pocket
medical expenses would be offset by some tax relief, making it
possible for the self-employed and currently uninsured to
purchase health insurance. Medicare would continue much the same
as it functions now, with the addition of catastrophic coverage.


Lower Costs. One of the greatest advantages would be that
inflation of health care costs--now rising some 11 percent
annually--would be slashed, without sacrificing any quality of
care. Today, health costs are rising fast largely because there
is no incentive in the system to control them. Under the Heritage
system, consumers would benefit by choosing cost efficient
insurance plans and medical care, and would not be rewarded, as
they are now, for seeking unnecessary health services.

The Clinton plan, in contrast, would lower costs through price
controls, which would inevitably lead to government-imposed
rationing of health services.

Portability. Americans would no longer have to depend on
employers for their health care plan. Americans could keep their
plans when they change jobs or retire.

Less Paperwork. The Heritage Plan would cut out a large part of
the bureaucracy and paperwork in the health system. The health
care market would become naturally regulated by consumer choices,
just as with most other consumer goods now, rather than
artificially controlled by the government. The Clinton plan, on
the other hand, would add another layer of bureaucracy, costly
both in itself and because of the increased inefficiency it would
bring to the health care system.

High Quality. Under the Heritage plan, there would be no reason
for quality of care to deteriorate or become rationed. Such a
decline in quality is a real danger if the Clinton health plan is
enacted.

Equal Treatment for All Ages. Every single American would 
benefit from the Heritage plan. Young, healthy citizens would
not be favored over the sick or elderly. When rationing occurs, 
as in the Clinton plan, sick and older people are the ones who 
suffer most. Medicare patients would receive, for the first time, 
badly needed catastrophic coverage.

Encouragement to Work. Those who have elected to stay on welfare
rather than risk losing welfare's health benefits would be able
to find a job and get off the welfare rolls, because they would
now receive help in purchasing health insurance.

Reprinted by permission of the Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Ave., N.E.  Washington, D.C.20002 
(202) 546-4400 or (800)544-4843

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