STAR PARKER COMMENTARY: No To Medicaid For The Middle Class

Asserts the conservative Republican commentator, about increased socialism in health care provision: "The Senate Finance Committee has approved a major expansion of SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. President Bush had proposed expanding its $25 billion budget by $5 billion. But the committee has approved the Democrats' initiative to expand this government program far more aggressively. Under the proposal, 50 percent more children will be covered by SCHIP through an increase in funding of $35 billion. The cost will be financed by a tax hike on cigarettes of 61 cents per pack....Responsible senators should vote against this major step toward further socialization of American health care. And if Congress does pass this, the president should veto it. The reason for the launch of the SCHIP program in 1997 was affordability of health care. The point was to finance health care for children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, almost half of our nation's children have government-paid health care either through Medicaid or SCHIP. This new proposed expansion would entrench government health care more deeply into the nation's middle class. Whereas SCHIP coverage has commonly covered families earning up to 200 percent above the poverty line, the new proposal lifts this ceiling to 300 percent. According to the Congressional Budget Office, up to 75 percent of families in this income range already have private coverage. Because the program is administered at the state level, coverage guidelines vary and in some cases have even included adults."

Ms. Parker continues her commentary: "Why, in a country of abundance such as ours, where practically everything just gets cheaper and more accessible, does health care stand out in just getting more expensive? Or to put it another way: Name any product or service that is delivered in a competitive free market that has not gotten cheaper over time. This should provide a hint to the problem in health care. Despite what our Democratic Party leadership would have us believe, the increasing costs and inaccessibility of health care is the result of excessive government interference in this market as opposed to not enough....As a result, we get Medicaid for middle-class America and children getting health care from different suppliers than their parents. Brilliant! Bush offered a creative proposal in his State of the Union address this year that would start addressing the problem at its root. It puts a $15,000 ceiling on the deductibility of employer health coverage, and offers a $15,000 tax deduction to every American family to purchase health care. This would change current economics that favor plans delivered through employers rather than purchased individually."

And more: "We need to allow a national market in health-care delivery to emerge to replace the crazy quilt of separate state-regulated fiefdoms, and to fix our tort-law system that requires young medical-school graduates to spend tens of thousands of dollars on malpractice insurance in order to start practicing their profession. Health care follows the same laws of supply and demand as every other good or service. It's not an accident why, as Regina Herzlinger of the Harvard Business School explained recently in a Wall Street Journal column, we don't see innovation and entrepreneurship in the delivery of health care like we see in every other marketplace. As she explains, the health-care marketplace is too controlled and constrained by government regulations."