Heritage Foundation: Health Care on the Brink

This article goes over the issues regarding the SCHIP battle as it relates to government health care as a whole. The author points out that during Hillary Clinton's attempt to create a universal tax payer provided health care program, they concluded that the best way to do that was incrementally through segments of the population starting with the children first. The rally cry behind the debate of the necessity of federal programs like these is that there are 47 million people in America without health insurance. The problem with arguing that the SCHIP program helps solve that is that the expanded SCHIP program proposed by congress would move 77% of those eligible from private health insurance to taxpayer insurance. Therefore it doesn't solve the problem of giving people without insurance coverage, it just mandates that the government (taxpayers) pay it.

This is a good article by a congressman from Oklahoma for the Heritage Foundation. I agree with everything in it. It concludes with a quote from Hillary Clinton that 'When I am elected president we are going to get universal health care.' She tried it once. Let's hope for the sake of the children who will have to find a way to pay for this program long after the current congress people are gone that that does not happen. Enjoy the article.

By Ernest Istook

The debate over government-run health care has roiled for decades. Today, we’re at the tipping point.

Incremental growth in public health programs has brought us to the brink. Today, almost half of America’s children — 45 percent — have their health care paid for by taxpayers. The children’s health bill (SCHIP) now before Congress would boost this to 55 percent. And that’s the tipping point.

Once most children are covered by taxpayers, the remaining children will shortly follow. Then their parents. Then those with no children at home. Eventually, the whole country would be under Washington-run health care, using tax dollars to pay the bills.

Even without a megabillion-dollar SCHIP expansion, taxpayers already pick up the tab for almost half the health care in America, via Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration. The SCHIP expansion could tip that, too, so the majority of all health care — not just kids’ care — is government-paid and therefore government-controlled.

Continue reading this article here.