Health Care BS

While the debate over “reform” has raged at town hall meetings, on talk radio, in the MSM and the blogosphere, the bureaucrats have been quietly implementating government-run health care:

For the first time, government programs next year will account for more than half of all U.S. health-care spending.

The advance is slow but sure: In 2005, the government’s share of total spending was about 45%. In 2008, it was up to 47%. In 2011, it will break the halfway mark:

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates in a paper to be published Thursday in the journal Health Affairs that the proportion will rise to 50.4% by 2011.

A big part of this increase involves Medicaid “mission creep.” The bureaucrats have transformed a program whose original purpose was to aid the poor into a Trojan horse for socialized medicine. The result?

CMS analysts attribute this predicted growth in public spending in 2009 to projected growth in Medicaid enrollment (6.5 percent) and spending (9.9 percent).

The party line on this is that it is recession-driven, but this was going on for many years before the current downturn. They have done it by slowly expanding eligibility for Medicaid.

Now, more than 25% of all state spending is for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which now defines “children” as people in their twenties living at home.

So, while we have been debating the pros and cons of various health care delivery systems, state and federal bureaucrats have been moving the ball slowly down the field.

Oh, sorry. Did you think the voters had a voice in this matter?