The Framework of Health Care Reform

President Clinton's Health Security plan is a distinctively American synthesis. Like universal health insurance in other industrialized countries, it covers a comprehensive set of benefits for all citizens and makes health coverage a right of citizenship. But unlike most systems abroad, it offers consumers the opportunity to choose among private health plans. Like programs abroad, the Health Security plan establishes national limits on the growth of health costs for covered benefits. It places a distinctive emphasis, however, on helping consumers obtain value for money by requiring health plans to compete for enrollment on the basis of both price and service…