In 1994, faced with the horror of having government bureaucrats make their health care decisions for them, the American public rejected the Clinton health care plan. On September 15, President Clinton told a union audience of his failed health care plan, "What I tried to do before won't work. Maybe we can do it another way. That's what we've tried to do, a step at a time until eventually we finish this."

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) have proposed legislation to establish a new federal program to buy health coverage for five million children. Sen. Hatch has characterized their proposal as the "free market approach" to insuring children. Unfortunately, neither the bill (S. 525) nor its funding mechanism (S. 526) have been fairly represented. 1. "This is not an entitlement."1