Public policy must be based on facts -- not feelings.
The Democrat-controlled Congress soon will send a grossly expensive $115 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program to President Obama for his signature.
It's fiscally irresponsible.
This is just more medicinal snake oil cooked up by liberals, because out of every 10 kids who will be added to the SCHIP scheme, six are currently covered by private insurance.
The new bill includes kids in families of four earning up to $80,000 per year. But the Congressional Budget Office reports that 77 percent of such children already have private health insurance, according to Michael F. Cannon, director of health-policy studies at the Cato Institute, a free-market think tank.
And there is no empirical evidence that this Nanny State Band-Aid and similar programs are cost-effective ways of improving children's health, say economists Helen Levy and David Meltzer.
Expanding SCHIP could make a bad situation worse by discouraging work. The Urban Institute offers an eye-opening example of the Law of Unintended Consequences:
"A single mother of two earning minimum wage in New Mexico who increased her earnings by $30,000 would find no change in her net income: She would pay an additional $4,000 in taxes and lose $26,000 in SCHIP and other government benefits," the institute concludes.
Expanding SCHIP is liberal malpractice at its most sickening.
