In Investor’s Business Daily, Betsy McCaughey notes that Washington has given just shy of a billion dollars to California “to set up its insurance exchange.” That’s not chump change, even in Obama’s America. So what’s it been spent on? “Outreach”:
California lawmakers passed a law (Senate Bill 35) requiring that voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange.
Last month, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health exchange on Oct. 1.
Of the 48 organizations that got grants, only a handful are health-care related. The California NAACP received $600,000 to do door-to-door canvassing and presentations at community organizations.
Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is “economic justice,” received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO got $1 million for door-to-door, one-on-one education and social networking. It describes its role as “engaging in both organizing and political campaigns, electing pro-union and pro-worker candidates.”
Obamacare won’t add a single doctor or nurse or even hospital janitor, but it does divert staggering sums of money to Democratic party interest groups entirely unrelated to health care, and that’s what matters.
The supposed rationale for Obamacare was that Americans pay more for health care than any other country, and yet too many of its citizens get none at all. On the eve of implementation, two things can now be said for certain: Health care will be more expensive than ever, and worse than ever. This will be a disaster beyond the wildest dreams of the British NHS or any other socialized system.