Froma Harrop / Syndicated columnist
Nation's health-care system could use government's hand

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President Bush is bashing John Kerry over a proposal that, he warns, "puts the government in control of health care."

Yeah. Nobody wants government-controlled health care — except for the people who have it. And you're going to have to pry it out of their cold, dead hands. We speak here of the Medicare beneficiaries.

The elderly always forget to clap when Bush offers to inject some marketplace magic into their government health program. They certainly sat on their hands when he unfurled plans to pay HMOs big sums to lure them out of traditional Medicare. In a CNN/Gallup poll, 73 percent of people over 65 expressed concern that this change would force Medicare recipients into HMOs. Two-thirds of that group was "very concerned."

What's wrong with the nation's elderly? Don't they want the freedom to choose which private insurer offers them the least bad plan? They must be socialists, or something. Or perhaps they've figured out that Medicare HMOs would weaken the traditional program by draining it of the healthier participants.

Back in the free-market paradise of the working stiff, 53 percent of people who have health coverage say they are afraid of losing it, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. And 64 percent of all adults surveyed worried about being able to afford the medical care they need.

Bush apparently still thinks the specter of a strong government hand in health care will send the public jumping on a chair and shrieking like Olive Oyl when she sees a mouse. But a decade has passed since Bill Clinton tried unsuccessfully to bring universal coverage to the land. The public is now older, wiser and more beaten up by a health-care system that has descended into chaos.

And so what is John Kerry's shocking idea? He would have the government pick up 75 percent of medical bills over $50,000 that an insured worker runs up. (Catastrophic claims represent less than half of 1 percent of all premiums, but account for 20 percent of the nation's health-care spending.) Here's a real-life example of what we're talking about:

Phoenix Products is a faucet maker in Avon Lake, Ohio. Two of its 50 workers became expensively sick: One had cancer, and the other a chronic illness. As a result, the company's health-insurance bill soared in one year from $250,000 to $350,000.

Faced with that kind of premium jump, some employers might dump their health insurance altogether — or shrink the coverage to hankie size. But a government subsidy would have prevented a mammoth increase in a company's premiums, making cutbacks in benefits unnecessary.

Many winners could emerge from this program. First, there are the workers, who would not lose their health coverage because one of their sick colleagues broke the bank in medical expenses. Older job applicants would have an easier time finding work: Many employers avoid mature workers, who are more likely to get sick and drive up the company's health-insurance costs.

The biggest winners, though, would be the small businesses themselves. They would not get socked with paralyzing premiums because one or two workers had fallen seriously ill.

A subsidy for catastrophic medical costs could be a first step in relieving businesses of the health-care burden. The system makes no sense, when you think about it. Why should Phoenix Products pay for its workers' asthma pills any more than it should pay their electric bills or deliver groceries to their doors?

Phoenix Products was put on this earth to make faucets. And making faucets is all it should have to do.

Bush's own health-care proposals mostly feed into his tax-cut fetish. For example, he proposes tax breaks to help low- and middle-income families purchase their own insurance. Thing is, these families pay no income taxes, or not enough that a tax break would buy them health coverage. And if a child or parent has an expensive medical condition, the family may be unable to secure coverage at any price.

Of course, American workers can look to government for some health-care assistance. However, the government is Canada's.

The Bush administration reminds us that buying prescription drugs in Canada is illegal, and it is trying to stop the activity. Bush doesn't want other governments "controlling" our health care, either. At least he's consistent.

Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com