There are events that occur from time to time that make me wonder what the hell people in government are thinking. Here is an example.
In the “Health Reform” bill that is currently before Congress, Medicaid funding to the states is expanded and the matching rates are increased. Some states foolishly anticipated that health reform legislation would pass last year and figured this increased Medicaid money into their budgets. Now, since the bill has not become law, the states that anticipated these additional federal dollars have massive holes in their budgets. Brilliant.
The idiocy that occurs in government is breath taking. Not to be outdone in the idiot department, President Obamas 2011 budget includes an additional $25 billion to fill these budget holes. Why actually fix the problems with Medicaid when you can just throw more money at them?
Why is it that we can’t elect some folks with the intestinal fortitude to fix Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
If we wanted to make Medicare whole today, it would take 80 trillion dollars. Anybody got that laying around? Just as a point of comparison, in 2008, the entire economic output for the United States was 15 trillion. Anyone see a problem here?
These programs are to the United States what the iceberg was to the Titanic.
We ignore them at our own peril.
