In exchange for higher taxes and worse budget pressures, Texas could expect to continue to find high numbers of uninsured people, if President Obama gets his health care “reform.” My friend Arlene Wohlgemuth, an expert in health care policy and a former state representative, reports that the proposal would cost every Texan a staggering $4,265 per year.
In a commentary for the San Antonio Express News, Wohlgemuth lays out the costs presented by this federal boondoggle in the making.
Much of the plan hinges around expanding the existing Medicaid program. Wohlgemuth notes that even if — an “if” that is surely imaginary — if the federal government covered the state mandates associated with the Obama recommendations, the state would still have to shell out an extra $8.9 billion.
The more likely scenario is that Obama and his minions in Congress would do what they always do: just push the cost as an unfunded mandate on the states. In that case, “the bill would sap as much as $28.2 billion from our state treasury.”
Ouch. Since the state doesn’t have the ability to print money like Congress does, taxes will have to rise dramatically either way.
In very short order, the Obama Administration plans would turn Texas’ mostly sunny fiscal outlook to a California-style budget disaster. And may shove a great many states into an all-out Category 5 hurricane of economic collapse.
