Small Biz Health Care Daily: Rep. Engel’s Health Care Vote and New York

Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) wrote a piece (“Fix health bill or lose my vote”) in today’s (March 10) New York Daily News on what his health care reform vote rides on. The piece is well worth reading – not for its policy ideas, which are completely wrongheaded (such as his support for a single-payer, socialized health care system) – but for the reality that ObamaCare will make the U.S. health care system more like New York’s.

Is that a good thing? According to Engel, it is. Based on sound economics and policymaking, however, it is far from a good thing.

Consider, for example, Medicaid. Engel makes clear that ObamaCare would make Medicaid nationally look more like how Medicaid works in New York. Engel’s complaint is that he wants more federal tax dollars for what New York already does, since other states would be getting bigger subsidies to expand Medicaid in their states.

The key point, however, is that Medicaid in New York has played a huge role in the state’s budget mess – as implicitly acknowledged in Engel’s piece. Now, the President, Rep. Engel and others want to make the rest of the nation more like New York. That does not bode well for taxpayers -- including, of course, investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses and their employees -- nationally.

Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council