Health Care Sticker Shock

From the New Haven Register:

The state lawmakers who back a single-payer, universal health care plan for Connecticut have received a needed, if overdue, dose of fiscal reality.

The Connecticut legislature's budget office estimates their universal health care plan could double the state's proposed $17.5 billion dollar budget.

The editorial also had this to say about the plan:

Advocates of universal health care have not only ignored the staggering cost to taxpayers, but the fact that the present health care system, imperfect as it may be, provides health coverage, either through employers or individual coverage, to 94 percent of state residents.

But, doubling the state’s budget and bankrupting state taxpayers is no way to solve the problem of providing health insurance to the 6 percent of state residents without coverage.

I recall when Dr. Robert Moffitt of the Heritage Foundation testified to the South Dakota legislature earlier this year about our state's health care plans, he said something along the lines of not screwing up what we have in order to close the gap for the remaining uninsured.

I hope our legislature was listening, and listening good.

Hat tip to the National Center for Policy Analysis.