Healths Gain May Be Armys Loss

Call it the law of unintended consequences. When you fix one thing, it messes up other things.

If the Democrats win the election this year, and are able to enact a health care plan that extends adequate coverage to all Americans, the loser could be the Army. Getting enough people to enlist could become a major problem for the next president.

And that has made it harder to put the Army together. Government polls show that the proportion of young people who think they might enlist is roughly half what it was in the late 1980s. The military has responded with more recruiters and higher cash enlistment bonuses, and has met its goals. A significant factor for many recruits, it turns out, is the military’s generous health benefits for dependants.

Michael Massing, writing in the April 3 issue of The New York Review of Books, tells the story of one part-time college student from Brooklyn, who was holding down two jobs but still going into debt. “Meanwhile, he got married, his wife got pregnant, and he had no health care. From a brother in the military, he had learned of the Army’s many benefits, and, visiting a recruiter, he heard about Tricare, the military’s generous health plan.” He enlisted.

It seems a bit perverse that the incentives for a young person with children to join are greater than the incentives for his childless friend. But that is the way it is. All that could change if the push for some kind of national health insurance program were to be successful.

It is true, of course, that Democrats have been talking about such things for generations. The failure of health care legislation during Bill Clinton’s first two years in office left some viewing the issue as political dynamite — good for a campaign but fatal to anyone who tries to pass a specific program. It is quite unclear how the government would pay for a comprehensive program, and no candidates seem eager to discuss ways to hold down health care spending.

One partial solution to the negative effect on enlistment of a health care plan for all could be a new G.I. education benefit. Both the House and Senate have approved such a plan, but as part of the Iraq funding bill on which there are major differences. President Bush is opposed to the legislation, which its sponsors say would cost $50 billion over 10 years, and it is far from clear it will be enacted.

If we get a real health care plan for all Americans, it might require something like the Webb bill — or a very unpopular revival of the draft — just to keep fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The backers of health care legislation do not want to hurt the Army, but that is what could happen.