Des Moines Register: A Modest Proposal For U.S. Health Care
With all the talk about health care recently, I'm surprised that no one has challenged the crazy idea that hospitals should treat people who can't pay. This is a free market nation, dammit! The home of "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Dice" in store windows should have "No Cash, No Insurance, No Live" on our hospital doors (Mike Draper, 7/24).
Bloomberg: States Will Not Turn Down Obamacare's Medicaid Expansion
If state governments become politically unable to drop expanded Medicaid, it will only be because the state's residents consider the program a good use of taxpayer money. That hardly seems like a big risk. But if any people are really concerned, they should vote for Mitt Romney, who ran for governor in 2002 with the position that the federal government should take on a larger share of Medicaid costs in order to relieve state budgets. He is sure to stand in the way of any efforts, Republican or Democratic, to shift Medicaid costs to the states (Josh Barro, 7/24).
The Dallas Morning News: Legislators Must First Retire Medicaid Debt
Rectifying Medicaid's problem before taking care of other needs probably won't please superintendents, teachers and parents. Texas' public schools took a serious hit in last year's Legislature, to the tune of at least $4 billion. ... But the state's health budget comes first. Texas can't cut corners on its Medicaid payments (Carl P. Leubsdorf, 7/24).