The Clinton plan: a salute to American pluralism

The strength of President Bill Clinton's health reform proposal lies in its commitment to universal, portable health insurance. To enhance the political appeal of his plan, however, the president has forged a compromise between two divergent ethical precepts: (1) that health care is a social good to be made available to all Americans, on equal terms, at a financial burden roughly proportional to a household's income; and (2) that health care is a private good to be financed by households with premiums that may impose a much heavier financial burden on the poor than on the wealthy, even after public subsidies for the poor. The price of that compromise is enormous complexity, which is probably unavoidable in these United States.