History of Entitlements & Muddled Reforms
The Barrister at Maggie’s Farm asks: Why the skepticism about government health care? He answers the question: “because people have no confidence in government entitlement programs”. He explains why:
Social Security - bankrupt
Postal Service - bankrupt
Welfare - had devastating unintended consequences for which the nation still pays and from which the nation continues to suffer (eg huge rates - up to 70% - of single motherhood among beneficiaries)
Medicare - bankrupt
Medicaid - bankrupting the states
Government-run (ie union-controlled) schools: are people thrilled with them?
Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac - bankrupt
It’s not that these programs have failed completely. It’s just that they have huge problems. No one has a way to avoid the enormous fiscal problems coming soon with Social Security and Medicare. So we are supposed to ignore the list above and plunge into a massive new expansion of entitlement programs in the heath care sector?
And of course once a new entitlement is given out in a broad way, it can never be taken back.
And what is really screwy is that President Obama has completely muddled together the issue of Medicare cost containment with universal health care, health care subsidies for the lower middle class, an expansion of Medicaid, and so on. People become confused into thinking that somehow Medicare’s problems are connected to unrelated matters. If it is really known how to save a trillion dollars via Medicare reform over the next ten years as Obama claims - wouldn’t the responsible thing to do be to pass Medicare reform first?
Regarding Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - we have already painted ourselves into a fiscally untenable corner. It seems strange to believe that all we need to escape is a few more buckets of paint.
