BRADLEY'S HEALTH PLAN SHOWS HOW FAR LEFT HE IS

So presidential hopeful Bill Bradley wants free, federally subsidized health care for all Americans. Aside from providing further proof that the former New Jersey senator is running to the left of Vice President Gore, it is a bad idea.

That Bradley should run to the left of a liberal vice president is really no surprise to careful observers. Aside from the single and commendable flirtation with lower marginal tax rates in his co-authorship of the 1986 tax reform, Bradley carved out a Senate career marked mostly by devoted adherence to discredited liberal nostrums. Bradley even later helped to repeal the lower marginal rates he fought to enact with votes for higher taxes in 1990 (Bush) and 1993 (Clinton).

Bradley's plan carries a $65 billion price tag. He calls health-care coverage an "unalienable right" -- as much as the guarantees to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" contained in the Declaration of Independence. He proposes to dramatically expand the federal health-care system by subsidizing the poor and permitting Americans to enroll in the same coverage provided for members of Congress and federal employees. Even The Associated Press noted in a news story that the latter risked "potentially exploding the size of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program."

Gore's campaign decried Bradley's plan as "wildly unrealistic" and "wildly expensive," which it surely is. The vice president has offered a more limited approach.

The way to reform health care isn't to move toward bigger government. It is to offer greater consumer choice to all Americans through medical savings accounts.