The Rocky Mountain News has a good, and scary, critique of how Obama’s so-called “stimulus” package expands health care entitlements. Funny how this crisis brings on leviathan, as historian Robert Higgs has written. Here’s an excerpt:
It would be bad enough if the $800 billion-plus stimulus package – which could pass the Senate today – merely added hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit while offering few incentives to spur long-term growth.
But it’s worse than that. The bill threatens even greater damage to the nation’s fiscal health by expanding health-care entitlements. These new obligations would saddle future taxpayers with untold costs, potentially making millions of Americans – even those recently earning six-figure salaries – eligible for taxpayer subsidies.
They’re also a stealthy way to give Washington much greater control over health care, as The New York Times reported, “with little public notice and no public hearings.”
Several provisions in the stimulus package would immediately grow the welfare state. One would make Medicaid, the federal health program for the indigent, available to anyone who’s unemployed – former millionaire CEOs and laid-off retail workers alike. Another measure would, for the first time, provide taxpayer subsidies under the COBRA health-insurance law.
Read the rest here. With the News’ impending doom, don’t hold your breath for this type of editorial in the Denver Post.
(via Ari Armstrong)
