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Jewish World Review July 25, 2005 / 18 Tammuz,
5765
Bill O'Reilly
Unhealthy and unwise
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
The devil has frostbite because hell has just frozen over. The
New York Times, the elite media champion of government entitlements, has
printed a "knock-your-socks off" investigation of Medicaid fraud in New York
State.
The headline is that 40 percent of New York's $45-billion
dollar-a-year Medicaid tab is paid to crooks who have figured out how to
beat the chaotic system. The Times ran down a list of thieves including
doctors, dentists, transportation providers and individuals. The paper did a
nice job exposing the scams and fraud but just dented the crime wall,
because to steal about $20 billion a year there has to be an army of
villains, and there are.
Now, I don't think anyone is surprised that entitlement fraud is
rampant in New York State, which is the highest taxed state in the union and
has two U.S. senators who love the entitlement gravy train: Chuck Schumer
and Hillary Clinton. But the state also has an allegedly conservative
governor, George Pataki. However, Pataki has little power because the State
Assembly is controlled by perhaps the worst elected official in the country,
Speaker Sheldon Silver, who makes Boss Tweed look like Elliot Ness. Silver
has consistently and unrepentedly stalled bills that would provide more
legal oversight on entitlement fraud.
So why should you care if you don't live in New York? Well,
because the liberal mantra that all Americans are entitled to
government-funded health care has gained momentum over the years and is
likely to be one of the cornerstones of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid.
Can you imagine the federal government sending checks out to
hundreds of millions of Americans and their health providers? Can you just
picture the chaos and the theft potential? We have massive fraud now with
targeted health plans for the poor and elderly. Universal health
entitlements would send the country into fiscal disaster.
The truth is that our Constitution does not mandate any
responsibility on the part of the feds to pay you anything. There wasn't
even a federal income tax withholding before 1913. But now the American Left
has decided that a "compassionate" society must provide health care even
though it is virtually impossible to do that in a nation of 300 million. The
national health system in Canada is chaotic, and they have just 33 million
citizens.
Rampant entitlements have bankrupted Germany and France, and the
high taxation that fuels these programs has made it impossible for the
German and French economies to grow. More entitlements and higher taxation
in the USA would lead to the same situation. We have been warned.
It must be galling to the left-wing columnists at The New York
Times that their own newspaper has illustrated the economic dangers of
massive entitlement programs. People like Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman
envision a quasi-socialist paradise where the feds provide you with
everything from tranquilizers to a colonoscopy. And judging from the
exposition of out-of-control Medicaid fraud in New York State, the
colonoscopy reference is disturbingly appropriate.
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