[October 18, 2008 @ 9:42 pm] David Catron

I wonder how many state-level “universal coverage” plans have to crash and burn before the advocates of government-run health care figure out that they don’t work. The latest such plan to slam headlong into the laws of economics is The Keiki Care program in Hawaii:

Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.

Why? Because, like all such programs, this one cost too much:

Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. 

And, while failing to solve the uninsurance problem, the program crowded out private insurance:

A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

And Hawaii’s ill-considered plan, as Michael Cannon of Cato points out, has much in common with Obamacare: 

[Obama] would waste taxpayer dollars on people who can already afford coverage on their own.  He would draw millions into government health programs that would threaten their access to care.

If the voters are foolish enough to put Obama in the White House, and he colludes with a Democrat-controlled Congress to implement his health care plan, we will see exactly the same result on a national scale.

The laws of economics are stubborn things.

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