Cheap, government-subsidized health insurance is popular. Who woulda thunk it? Apparently not the geniuses who govern the state of Massachusetts. The Boston Globe reports the following:

Spending on the state’s landmark health insurance initiative would rise by more than $400 million next year … The biggest driver of the cost increase is projected growth in the number of people signing up for state-subsidized insurance, which now far exceeds earlier estimates.

That’s right. The state’s “leaders” created strong financial incentives to sign up, and then were apparently surprised that a lot of people responded:

Officials had projected that about 140,000 would enroll in the new state-financed insurance plan … But by the end of last month, 169,000 people had signed up …  and the state is now estimating enrollment will reach 225,000 by June 2009.

This does not, however, mean that Massachusetts has reached its ostensible goal of ”universal coverage.” Ignoring the possibilty that they may be fined, a large percentage of the Bay State’s uninsured population have chosen to remain uninsured. 

And it is probable that, like a similarly misguided program in Maine, “Commonwealth Care” is causing significant crowd-out of private coverage. In other words, it is highly likely that many of the people signing up were probably already insured.

And who do you suppose is going to pay the bill for all this idiocy?

State and federal taxpayers are expected to bear nearly all of the additional cost.

Did you notice the phrase “and federal taxpayers”? It’s not enough that the taxpayers of Massachusetts have to finance this mess. Those of us with better sense than to live in that state will have to pony up our money as well.

Why am I paying for an unsuccessful program that I don’t support concocted by politicians I never had a chance to vote against?