COLUMN RIGHT/ JAMES P. PINKERTON : Health Care: Win This One for Lyndon : Hillary-mania is the diversion; the reality is that the Clinton plan is old-style liberalism.

Hillary-mania is here. Why? Because the Clinton White House thinks it’s easier to sell the sizzle of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personality than the steak of her forthcoming health-care plan.

Ms. Rodham Clinton might not be everyone’s favorite, but don’t tell her fans in the press: The Washington Post reports that Hillary is “replacing Madonna as our leading cult figure.” People magazine writes that she is “a political pragmatist driven by a deep sense of spiritual mission.” Time describes her as “the icon of American womanhood.” Family Circle, equally eager to please but mindful of its less hip readership, calls Hillary a “brilliant woman,” but also highlights her oft-overlooked “traditional side.”

Hillary was smart to mount her own campaign, with her own Hollywood feminist media team. She thus escaped being helped by the public-relations geniuses surrounding her husband--the gang that can’t keep its stories straight, that writes tasteless jokes, that can’t get into bars without being carded.

Mindful of the charge that she’s an old-style liberal, Hillary has repositioned herself as a New Age philosopher. Last month, in a well-orchestrated “impromptu” speech, she spoke about America’s “crisis of meaning,” the “spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society,” and called for “a new ethos of individual responsibility and caring.”

So far so good. The problem is that Hillary peaked too soon. The magazines are on the stands, but the health-care plan is still at the printer. The sizzle is here, but where’s the beef? Hillary should enjoy the adulation while it lasts, because her ratings will fall when the details hit the fan. Will her proposal cost $100 billion or $150 billion? Will it be a 7% payroll tax? Or 10%? Rumor has it that they’ll call it a “premium.” But a tax by any other name is still a tax, as Shakespeare would have written if he had watched C-SPAN.

The Clinton health posse is a smart bunch, but the U.S. health-care system won’t fit into their computer. You can see the mile-high neon sign reading “Unintended Consequences” through the veil of secrecy. In government, the past is prologue. Remember the Medicaid scam the states pulled? The feds reimburse states for their Medicaid costs. Sounds reasonable, but nobody in Washington anticipated that those sneaky states would pour extra money into the Medicaid system to increase the federal match. Then the states play a shell game: They take their money off the table, while Uncle Sam is out billions. And the rip-off continues. Why? Because the governors, legislators and hospitals like the extra federal money. Once you uncork the genie of a stupid idea, it’s darn hard to get it back in the bottle if the status quo is fulfilling someone’s every fiscal wish.

In all likelihood, the new health plan will be old wine in a New Age bottle. What happened to “reinventing government?” Let’s put it this way. Nobody ever saw Hillary hanging with the Democratic Leadership Council. That was Bill’s gig.

The vaccine fiasco--Donna Shalala’s proposal to crush the drug companies and create a new federal entitlement for the wealthy--shows that Hillary and her Children’s Defense Fund set still hanker for the good old Great Society days.

The other side of the Clinton Administration’s brain shows some awareness of the need for non-bureaucratic solutions to serious problems. The Clintonians just announced an “empowerment zone” proposal for inner-city economic development, which is more than Jack Kemp could ever get out of the Bush White House. So it is all the more striking that the left lobe of the Administration is going forward with the Sovietization of U.S. health care. They are ignoring the Heritage Foundation’s “Consumer Choice Health Plan,” an empowering alternative to more bureaucracy.

With the Heritage plan, everyone would get a tax credit or voucher to choose their own health-care plan. Instead of the government deciding for us, we’d all become empowered, educated consumers, holding down health-care costs because for the first time, it would be our money the doctors were spending. Curious? Call Heritage. Like the Maytag repairman, they’re getting lonely waiting for the phone to ring.

Hillary & Co. did learn a lesson, however. Their best hope is to drive their plan through, not on its merits, but as an affirmation of the changing role of women, avenging Anita Hill and “12 years of neglect.” They know what they are doing: “Win one for Hillary” is a better rallying cry than “Make big government bigger!”