JOHN KERRY AND HEALTH CARE RATIONING.

Health care proposals by presidential candidate John Kerry, by severely limiting the right of Americans to spend their own money to save their own lives, would impose government rationing on lifesaving medical treatment, while depriving both the nation and the world of access to new lifesaving drugs.

Your Money Or Your Life

Kerry's rhetoric and proposals focus sharply on limiting by law the amount of money Americans spend on health care. While playing to the fact that no one likes to spend money, the unspoken consequence of the Kerry position is to deprive people of the right to spend what they can afford on medical treatment and drugs they need to stay alive and to maintain or improve their health.

There's an old joke about the man confronted by a brigand who pulls a gun and demands, "Your money or your life!" The man replies, "Take my life; I'm saving my money for my old age." Obviously, it does little good to preserve your nest egg if you're not around to enjoy it. Similarly, it is a fool's bargain to limit people's ability to buy essential health care on the grounds you are "protecting" them from having to pay for it.

A Government-Rationed Plan

A centerpiece of the Kerry health care plan is to "open" the health insurance system for federal government employees to all citizens - - sold as "provid[ing] all Americans with access to the same coverage that members of Congress give themselves." The objective, like that of the Bill and Hillary Clinton Health Care Plan, defeated in 1994, would be to move all Americans into a government-run health insurance system.

Under the federal employee insurance system, individuals do indeed get to pick among different insurance plans, with the opportunity to pay more for plans that are less likely to ration care. What may not be widely known, however, is that the premiums for these plans - - even the higher-value ones - - are tightly price-controlled by the government Office of Personnel Management. Insurance plans unwilling to offer coverage at a price acceptable to the government are excluded from competing.