The Left Espouses Dangerously Stupid Health-Care Rhetoric

via The National Review by JONAH GOLDBERG

Earlier this month a political zealot went to a baseball practice intending to kill as many Republican congressmen as he could. As often happens after such horrible events, various politicians and media figures suggested that we should tone down the rhetoric and not paint everything in apocalyptic terms, casting Republicans or Democrats as villains with traitorous or evil intent in their hearts. Words have consequences, they sagely said into the TV cameras

Two weeks later, many of the very same people are describing Republicans as murderers for proposing changes to Medicaid. “Forget death panels,” Hillary Clinton tweeted. “If Republicans pass this bill, they’re the death party.” Senator Elizabeth Warren said the tax cuts in the bill amount to “blood money.

Those comments were restrained compared with those of some activists, like left-wing filmmaker Josh Fox, who proclaimed on Twitter, “Mitch McConnell is a terrorist. [Donald Trump] is a terrorist. This bill terrorizes people and sentences poor people to death.”

I think the flawed Republican health-care plan is very much open to criticism, from the Left and the Right, but this rhetoric is repugnant and dangerously stupid. Both the House and Senate versions would impose a per-capita cap on Medicaid funding, or states could take a block grant, leaving it up to them how best to administer the program. And both plans would reduce the rate of growth in Medicaid spending by the federal government. The hope is that this pressure and flexibility would encourage states to impose efficiencies to the bloated, bureaucratic, and budget-busting program. (Total Medicaid spending last year was $533 billion.) The Senate plan also has provisions for tax credits and other reforms for those who would be knocked off the Medicaid rolls, so they could obtain insurance on the private market.

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