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Feds reward Colorado Medicaid for increasing gov’t dependency

Last week’s Denver Business Journal reports

Colorado received a $13.7 million award from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Monday for making changes to its Medicaid enrollment policies that led to a big increase this year in the number of children enrolled in the public health insurance program.

Read more: Colo. Medicaid program gets $13.7M.

So the feds reward the Colorado government for expanding government dependency.  The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that “for every 100 children who are enrolled in public insurance, 60 children lose private insurance.”

Worse yet, programs like SCHIP discourage parents from advancing their careers and earning higher wages because they might forfeit their government benefits. Parents are thus caught in a “low-wage trap.” *

Instead of promoting government dependency and crowding out non-government insurance products, Colorado Medicaid and S-CHIP should support self-reliance, private charity, and a competitive insurance marketplace.  One simple step would be to increase enrollment fees is the Colorado Children’s Health Plan Plus.

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* I’ve quoted my own letter to the editor on this subject from two years ago.