Big Bucks With Red-Tape Bonus : Health reform: The White House plan is complicated, restrictive and even immoral.

President and Mrs. Clinton are commendably concerned about the health of Americans. But their health reform plan is untenable from the viewpoint of simplicity, personal freedom and individual conscience.

First, the serial-numbered blue “health card” shown the press by President Clinton fails to assure us of better health care (the opposite is assured when we look at the socialized medical plans of Britain, Sweden and Canada). Aside from its immense but as-yet unmeasurable cost, the program assures red tape, restricted choice and rationing.

The Clintons concede that the vast majority of our citizens are able now to care for themselves medically. What they do not concede is that their proposal would entail massive intrusion of the state’s power into our personal lives and a consequent loss of personal freedom. Bureaucrats will tell us which plan, which hospital, which doctor, which operation, which disease, which life-and-death procedure, with the same care, control and compassion of the Internal Revenue Service. Even if the Clintons’ socialized medicine raises the level of health care for the few, its forced subscription makes us all far less free.

And finally, the mandatory inclusion of unlimited abortion on demand contradicts the fundamental purpose of any health system. Doctors, hospitals and even pro-abortion advocacy groups recognize that the procedure is rarely performed for health reasons but is elective.

Unrestricted abortion also violates the consciences of millions of Americans--Christian and non-Christian alike. Government-mandated abortion funding undermines a renewed effort to reclaim sexual responsibility and abstinence, traditional duty and love.

Whatever one’s beliefs about the unborn, should all Americans be forced to purchase for themselves and subsidize for others a process that kills rather than heals? Congress has always explicitly excluded abortion from federal funding of both domestic and foreign medical-care programs. Congress should continue to do so.