THREATENING TO OUT-CLINTON THE FIRST FAMILY

Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, legislative leadership for the most part in tow, is working toward passage of a health-care reform measure that threatens to out-Clinton the First Family's federal proposals. It is being heralded in Jefferson City this week to lukewarm backing even among partisans, though don't be surprised to see the issue still alive and kicking as the legislative session winds down next month. While most lawmakers from this area are already on record as wary of the plan, we urge other of their colleagues to watch this one carefully. Its far-reaching impact can confound the health-care marketplace even if the schemes coming out of Washington, D.C., never materialize.

Like many pieces of legislation that get passed into law, the health-care reform plan is an instrument of strained good intentions. There are aspects of American health care that undeniably need repair. However, what Gov. Carnahan hopes to achieve with his proposal, championed in the House by Speaker Bob Griffin, is an insertion of government squarely into the medical marketplace, with mandates for insurers on who gets covered and what rates they are charged. History reminds us that governments intent on inserting themselves into market conditions seldom succumb to success, and most often just gum up the works.

In a lucid commentary on the subject recently, Conrad Meier, a leading spokesman for the Missouri insurance industry, debunks many of the arguments Gov. Carnahan and his devotees foster in promoting this bill. Mr. Meier offered in his writing facts that counter the governor's claims that the measure will not require employer mandates, will not automatically lower the cost of health care, will not burden small businesses and will not create new bureaucracies. He refers to the Carnahan plan as a Trojan horse, with the costs and means of financing the proposal hidden from view. Perhaps most insightful, Mr. Meier points out that given the course of national health-care reform being stewarded by President and Mrs. Clinton, with passage far from a certainty, Missouri might gain the absurd distinction of creating the most radical reform package of all the states.

There is another aspect to this. As the baseball sage Yogi Berra liked to point out, "It's deja vu all over again." It is like that for the Missouri General Assembly as well. Between the time when the legislative session convened Jan. 5 until it adjourns May 13, there are 128 days. Health-care reform legislation was cited from the first day as a priority item of business, though we stand now with just more than five weeks left in the session, and the matter is only beginning to pick up a head of steam. Look for it to be a topic of debate during the closing days, or even closing hours, of the session, when unsavory language and political horse-trading can be overlooked in the hectic pace. One might remember that Senate Bill 380, last year's tax increase for education, was approved on the last day of the legislative session after being bandied about for months. The full gravity of that tortured measure is still being weighed.

The same thing can happen to health-care reform, and with the same dismal result. If this is landmark legislation, lawmakers should not expose it to last-minute and hurried review. Let the weight of this measure be discovered before it becomes law.