The Left’s health care “reform” plan will dramatically expand eligibility for Medicaid, a poorly-functioning program created in the 1960s to help low-income families.
Heritage Foundation expert Conn Carroll explains:
The Health care “reform” bills advancing in the House and Senate would expand Medicaid by making this government-run health plan available to all adults with incomes at or below 150% of the poverty line. The change would dramatically multiply eligible recipients, with 46 states seeing increases of at least 20%, including 16 posting jumps of 50% or more. Almost 21% of the entire U.S. population would be eligible for Medicaid and seven states and the District of Columbia would have eligibility rates of at least 25%.
Meanwhile, Heritage Vice President Stuart Butler debunks liberal myths about the proposed “trigger,” which would create a government-run health care “public option” if other reforms fail to work. This mechanism, he explains, provides few incentives to experiment with new approaches and its criteria would be hard to measure.
The Senate version of the health care bill, which has been written in secret, will probably be revealed this week, Heritage’s Brian Darling explains. The House narrowly passed its bloated big-government bill earlier this month.
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