The Law of Unintended Consequences - Part MCMLXVIII Posted by: McQ
on Friday, October 17, 2008
The idea, in theory, was to provide universal health care to all the children of Hawaii. Well not really. The idea was to make health insurance and thus health care universal by providing children who didn't have health care insurance with state subsidized health insurance.
Gov. Linda Lingle's administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program.
The real reason?
A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.
"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."
Ah those magic words - "I don't believe that was the intent of the program?"
Intent. Again, as in our last example, anyone with the IQ of poi would know that would happen if they actually thought this through and followed it to a logical conclusion.
But apparently intent is enough to toss untold billions at a program that's abandoned 7 months later. Don't get me wrong - I don't support such programs because that's not a business government should be in. But it is hard to believe that the 'experts' who designed the program as they did somehow didn't understand where it would eventually go.
Heck, why do you think some of the biggest corporations in America are fans of government subsidized health insurance?
GASP! Do you mean to tell me that the expense of a government giveaway program got out of control because people took advantage of it????
Whoda thunkit???
Note the cost of the program to the recipients: free except for a $7 co-pay. I have excellent insurance (for the time being) through my job, and that’s waaaayyy better than what we get. Who WOULDN’T ditch their private plan for this kind of coverage?
And what kind of idiot didn’t see this coming?
Oh, wait... The kind of idiot that works for the government.
Too bad Hawaii can’t just raise taxes on "the rich" or borrow more from China to fund the program to its fullest extent, like what the federal government can do.
Normally governments put it one life-support for longer than that before throwing in the towel. I suspect there’s more to the story of what went wrong than the budget.
