Fast-Tracking Government Control of Health Care
Nina Owcharenko Schaefer /
Efforts in Congress to fast-track passage of an economic stimulus package and expansion of the children’s health care program, if successful, would give liberals a big down payment on nationalizing health care. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has stated as much.
America already was on a fast track toward the tipping point in health care — that point where the federal government will control more spending on personal health than the private sector does. Today, as this chart shows, government controls 46 percent of such spending; its share is expected to reach 49 percent by 2017. Adding more middle-class kids to the children’s health care program (known as SCHIP), along with expanding Medicaid and sundry health provisions in President Obama’s economic stimulus package, only will move the country faster to socialized medicine.
The SCHIP reauthorization bill would give states the ability to expand coverage to children — and in some instances adults and immigrants — at any income level. The bill also would accelerate, rather than minimize, losses in private health coverage. If states follow the leads of New York and New Jersey and expand SCHIP to include families earning over $80,000 a year, a staggering three-fourths of American children would be eligible for government-run health care. This alone would be a tremendous victory for those who want the U.S. government, not the consumer, to be in charge of health care choices.
There’s more, though: The economic stimulus package includes components that lay the foundation for more government sway over health care. First, the plan expands eligibility for Medicaid to new populations — making government health care the default option for the unemployed and creating greater dependence on this poorly performing welfare program. (more…)