For The Children

I'm not a big Rush Limbaugh fan, but I will give the guy props. I think he was one of -- if not the -- first to recognize the leftist ploy to expand government "for the children." Voters don't want more welfare, but they'll support additional programs "for the children." repeat ad nauseum for any government command and control structure. As if there were a children's economy independent of their guardians.

The WSJ Ed Page finds Senator Clinton bragging about this strategy to her devoted following. Democrats seek to enlarge the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The editorial (free link) describes SCHIP as "Bill Clinton's health-care consolation prize after the implosion of HillaryCare. It expires in September without reauthorization, and Democrats are using the opening to turn it into another giant middle-class health-care entitlement. Call it HillaryCare on the installment plan."

Same song different verse. It is enacted to cover those too poor for adequate coverage without qualifying for Medicare, but is expanded to the middle class and is now threatening to become de facto Universal Care.

In other words, what began as a hard-cap grant to cover the working poor is evolving into an open-ended entitlement to cover whatever promises states make. And all under the political cover of helping "children." Instead of debating government-run health care on its merits, Democrats are building it step by step on the sly. Or as Mrs. Clinton put it in Nevada, "Make no mistake. This will be a series of steps."

There's a lesson here for Republicans, who agreed to create Schip in a trade for Mr. Clinton's signature on their "balanced budget." Balanced budgets vanish in the blink of an election, while entitlements like Schip live on and expand as an ever-larger claim on taxpayers. Mark this down as another case in which Bill Clinton outfoxed Newt Gingrich. The least Republicans can do now is work to return Schip to its original, more modest purposes.

Those cruel bastards at the WSJ Ed Page don't seem to like children.

Health Care Posted by John Kranz at April 24, 2007 10:52 AM