Moves to nationalize health care

Kimberley Strassel notes that the House spending bill is going a long way to nationalizing health care for everyone not just poor people through Medicaid and the elderly for Medicare, but a whole lot of more people. First there was the already-passed SCHIP plan that will extend government health care to children whose parents earn up to $65,000 a year. Now they are at work to expanding the pool of people receiving government health care through the so-called stimulus package.

Still, it's the "stimulus" that has proven the real gift horse -- a behemoth that has allowed Democrats to speed up the takeover of health care under cover of an economic crisis. They initially claimed, for instance, the "stimulus" would provide Medicaid money to states struggling to pay existing bills. What in fact it does is dramatically expand the number of Americans who qualify for Medicaid.

Under "stimulus," Medicaid is now on offer not to just poor Americans, but Americans who have lost their jobs. And not just Americans who have lost their jobs, but their spouses and their children. And not Americans who recently lost their jobs, but those who lost jobs, say, early last year. And not just Americans who already lost their jobs, but those who will lose their jobs up to 2011. The federal government is graciously footing the whole bill. The legislation also forbids states to apply income tests in most cases.

House Democrat Henry Waxman was so thrilled by this blowout, it was left to Republicans to remind him that the very banking millionaires he dragged to the Hill last year for a grilling would now qualify for government aid. His response? A GOP proposal to limit subsidies to Americans with incomes under $1 million was accepted during markup, but had disappeared by final passage. In this new health-care nirvana, even the rich are welcome. CBO estimates? An additional 1.2 million on the federal Medicaid dime in 2009.

The "stimulus" also hijacks Cobra, a program that lets the unemployed retain access to their former company health benefits -- usually for about 18 months. The new stimulus permits any former employee over the age of 55 to keep using Cobra right up until they qualify for Medicare at age 65. And here's the kicker: Whereas employees were previously responsible for paying their health premiums while on Cobra, now the feds will pay 65%. CBO estimates? Seven million Americans will have the feds mostly pay their insurance bills in 2009.

Rather than making the mistake that Hillary made in trying to nationalize health care in one big comprehensive package, the Democrats are now going about it by expanding one group after another and hoping that no one will notice until we wake up and realize that the government has taken on the responsibility of paying for health care for everyone.

This is being accomplished without much debate under the cover of providing stimulus. Of course, there is nothing stimulative about this. The health care industry is not the sector of the economy where we have to worry about unemployment. This isn't about stimulus, but about changing the relationship between health care and the government. And there will be nothing temporary about it. We'll be on the hook for all this promised spending.

Let's have this debate now before it's too late.