You don't have to look far to see the effects of socialism creeping into our health care system.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich is moving ahead with a broad expansion of state-subsidized health care even though a legislative oversight panel told him "no" last week.
Blagojevich is expanding FamilyCare income eligibility to $82,600 for a family of four to give more people medical coverage. Previously, the income cutoff was $38,202 per year for that same family.
On Tuesday, a legislative rule-making panel voted to block Blagojevich's attempt to enact the health-care expansion. But Abby Ottenhoff, a Blagojevich spokeswoman, insisted the panel is not legally empowered to block the governor's actions.
"[The panel's] role is merely advisory," Ottenhoff wrote in an e-mail response to the Tribune late Friday. "It does not have the constitutional authority to suspend the regulation."
Lawmakers who thought they had blocked the governor last week were caught off guard by Blagojevich's decision to press ahead despite the rejection.
So, if a family making 80K a year will now be covered by government health care, where's the cutoff going to be in a decade? Eventually there won't be a cutoff, because government programs push the expenses of the non-insured to the insured, through higher taxes, higher health care costs, and higher premiums. In turn this makes it harder for people to afford insurance, which makes more people who need to be covered by government programs.
