Healthy Kids Program Doing Well

I fear a Federal or California single-payer health system would combine a lot of the worst aspects of big government: intimate control over our lives by remote, unaccountable bureaucrats and politicians, many with a not-hidden-at-all religious right agenda; rationing of treatment; stifling of medical innovation; being sold as a way to help the poor, but ending up handing most of its entitlements right back to the middle class taxpayers who could have just payed for their own health care in the first place, without entangling their health care with politics.

But what about a more human-scaled program. One run at the county level. Means-tested, so that it really helps poor people. Well, we have a program like that here in Santa Clara County. And, apparently, it's doing well:

Mercury News editorial: "Healthy Kids shines brighter" (requires sign in)

Already copied throughout California and considered a model for the nation, the program is reaching new heights. At a time when many programs are cutting or fighting to maintain budgets, the Santa Clara Family Health Plan is expanding and will insure an additional 1,000 kids this year, bringing the total number of children covered by the program to 14,000.

I think its a great idea. I know there are some purist Libertarians in this county who would oppose it automatically because it is tax funded. I say to them if they don't like it, instead of complaining, they should set up a completely voluntary system that provides assistance to the poor. If they actually showed that kind of active concern for people, they'd win over thousands of voters to believing in freedom instead of more government.