WHY HELP KEEP HEALTH CARE REFORM ON TRACK?

The juggernaut known as health care reform moves steadily toward some type of resolution in Congress. This long-gestating measure, the centerpiece of President Clinton's legislative program, possesses some of the features of a galactic black hole: It absorbs the light of congressional contemplation and grows larger in the process, yet it gives off little illumination for the space it takes up. As compromises are constructed and easily obliterated lines are drawn in the political sand, it should be remembered that any final legislation that swells government's involvement in the nation's first-rate medical care system is undesirable.

The most recent development in this muddled bit of legislative work occurred with the announcement that Republican moderates had cooked up an alternative plan that is better than the president's severe reform but still yields too much to it. The Republicans, including Missouri Sen. John Danforth, want the requirements for universal coverage removed, the mandates for employer funding of worker insurance lifted and the tobacco tax increase to fund the whole program expunged. Admittedly, these are good steps.

But the fight in Congress should be about points that remain, which pump up American health care into just another weighty, expensive, government-directed enterprise. The fundamental chasm that must be bridged is that health care stands in the Clinton administration model as an entitlement, absent constitutional weight but an entitlement all the same. And in this, Congress should balk, knowing that other entitlements ultimately become playgrounds of excess. One example is welfare, which also finds itself in that congressional vapor called reform. Watching an omnipotent government fail in the Soviet Union seems to have taught the folks in Washington little. Instead of burning the bridges of failed policies, some in the nation's capital remain content to rebuild the spans and cross them repeatedly.

This makes it all the more surprising that Sen. Danforth, whose level-headedness is usually a staple in Congress, would attach his name to the pending GOP blueprint. Compromise lifts itself to nobility in some instances, but not where there is a fundamental flaw in a program and not when a bill's death by inaction isn't devastating to the republic.

President Clinton faces a political crisis of his own making, not exactly a startling development. He says health care reform must contain universal coverage for the legislation to be worthy of his signature. This read-my-lips requirement puts him on the hook in terms of congressional opposition. What the moderates have done with their proposal is let him off the hook, giving the president's plan renewed life.

Health care represents 14 percent of the American economy, and Congress wants to take it over. If you list five entities you would like to see in charge of 14 percent of the American economy, would Congress make the list? We don't think so. We think the idea of Congress overhauling health care in such a sweeping way is wrong-headed, and we don't relish purported compromises that keep this endeavor on track.