
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 3, 1994                   TAG: 9401260007
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CHANGE TOPS AMERICA'S AGENDA

IN THIS new year, the twin peaks President Clinton and Congress have set for themselves to climb are health-care and welfare reform. A serious start toward addressing both would do more for the country than anything else Washington might try in 1994.

But to succeed with these reforms, the American people and their representatives will need to continue exploring and testing the New Democrat themes that underlie the efforts - the themes on which Bill Clinton was elected.

In a word, they revolve around change. Often described as moderate or centrist, Clinton's best public-policy ideas are neither, in the sense of promoting moderation in all things or splitting the difference between left and right. Rather, the new agenda calls for a synthesis of progressive goals with non-bureaucratic methods - grounded in an ethic of reciprocal responsibility.

Health-care reform, in this light, ought to extend universal, basic coverage while introducing incentives for both patients and providers to discipline their health-care choices. Welfare reform should shift government's focus away from subsidies toward employment, while attempting to end dependence as a way of life.

Americans must come to grips with the new social contracts President Clinton was trying to explain (albeit not particularly well) in a couple of barely noted speeches last October.

Clinton suggested that people need a sense of "economic security, health security and personal security." But he wasn't talking about old Democrat-style cradle-to-grave security, which government can never provide. He was talking about not security in its own right or for its own sake, but the kind of security people need in order to face and to make change.

A rapidly shifting, globalizing economy demands flexibility. So the point of "economic security" shouldn't be to protect existing jobs (a losing cause in the long run). The point is to encourage quick transitions into new lines of work.

As Clinton put it in an Oct. 8 speech, "the economy is creating and losing millions of jobs constantly." So he would have Washington offer a deal: retraining assistance and portable health coverage, in exchange for willingness and preparation to "change jobs at least seven times" in a lifetime.

It is a social contract that doesn't leave out individual responsibility. Economic security, Clinton suggested, "must be rooted in a continuing capacity to learn." And "our health will not be secure until we seek responsibility for seeking preventive care."

What Clinton seems to be invoking is the wisdom of the American way. This country was never meant to protect its citizens from change. Yet, to embrace change, people need a sense of self-reliance and faith in a better future.

As the president said, regarding his primary agenda item this year, "Unless we can be secure in our health care, I'm not sure the American people will ever be able to recover the personal optimism and courage to open up to the rest of the world."

Recovering optimism and courage is the essence of America's agenda. Policy-wise, that requires, at the least, a greater government focus on investments in future prosperity - in education, training, infrastructure, research and development - and fewer entitlements for everyone.

by CNB