ObamaCare and Children

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/12/obamacare-and-children

The New York Times carries a column by David Leonhardt likening opposition to ObamaCare to opposition to civil rights. The column says:

Guaranteeing people a decent retirement and decent health care does more than smooth out the rough edges of capitalism. Those guarantees give people the freedom to take risks. If you know that professional failure won't leave you penniless and won't prevent your child from receiving needed medical care, you can leave the comfort of a large corporation and take a chance on your own idea. You can take a shot at becoming the next great American entrepreneur.

This "prevent your child from receiving needed medical care" is a straw man. Even before ObamaCare, there was a vast safety net providing health care for children of penniless parents, starting with Medicaid and including the program known as CHIP — the Children's Health Insurance Program — or SCHIP — State Children's Health Insurance Program. Mr. Leonhardt might have made this argument when Republicans opposed expanding SCHIP to cover not just children but their parents all the way up to four times the poverty level. But it has almost nothing to do with ObamaCare, unless Mr. Leonhardt is talking about not "children" as young as we traditionally think of them but rather 25-year-olds, which are another issue.

by Ira Stoll  |  Dec 14, 2010 at 9:22 pm Related Topics:  Health Care receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list