If anything is scarier than the known, explosive costs of proposed ObamaCare socialized medicine, it is the still-unknown consequences of having the federal government take over such a huge part of medical care and of our economy.
The estimates of the cost of ObamaCare are already outrageous, and history teaches that big federal entitlement programs wind up costing vastly more than the original guesses. Plus, it just isn’t possible to predict all the ways that individuals and state and local governments may react to the proposal’s sweeping provisions.
But the state of Nevada is offering one disturbing hint.
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons is considering having his state opt out altogether from the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled if ObamaCare passes. (ObamaCare is expected to impose massive new Medicaid costs on the states.)
Nevadans who get Medicaid would rely instead on federal subsidies to get coverage through the so-called insurance exchanges set up under ObamaCare, the Las Vegas Sun reported. That would shift much of the cost of covering the poor and disabled from the state of Nevada to the federal government — meaning to taxpayers around the country.
But how long do you think it would take other states to follow Nevada’s lead once it opted out of Medicaid, and to start dumping a bigger share of their costs on Washington, too?
Worse still, how long would it take before the early, rosy “guesstimates” of the cost of ObamaCare would have to be thrown out the window, and the true, mind-boggling cost would be dumped on taxpayers?
Of course, by then ObamaCare would be a done deal and would be difficult or impossible to undo. Hadn’t we better think about those ugly consequences now rather than after it’s too late?