Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Expanding a Broken Program: Democrats’ Health “Reform”

This morning’s New York Times has a compelling piece about how states cannot afford their existing Medicaid programs and are cutting physician reimbursement levels, therefore limiting patients’ access to care.  Of course, the Senate bill would expand Medicaid coverage to 15 million more Americans, creating tens of billions of dollars of new unfunded mandates on all states (except Nebraska).  But how will adding more beneficiaries to an already leaky Medicaid boat do anything other than overwhelm both new and existing Medicaid beneficiaries?  And why should low-income people be stuck in a “Medicaid ghetto” created in the Democrat bills whereby poor families are purposely denied the choice of health plans offered to their wealthier counterparts?  How does either scenario classify as true “reform?”