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A Toast to ReidCare's Demise
...As its name suggests, it would allow 55- to 64-year-olds to buy into Medicare, a program that is currently reserved for seniors 65 and older. But Medicare already faces a projected deficit of $50 trillion to $100 trillion over the long term. It is on track to go bankrupt in eight years even without ReidCare. With ReidCare, its demise would have been greatly expedited.

No one, however, expects the left to be exercised over the fiscal lunacy of the buy-in idea. Indeed, as far as it is concerned, the faster people are crammed into Medicare, the better it is because the fiscal hole this will create will have to be plugged with higher taxes that could ultimately be applied toward universal health coverage. Nor should anyone be surprised if the left shed no tears for all the underpaid Medicare providers who would have been driven out of business if Medicare expanded its market share. This too is a necessary prerequisite for government-run health care.

But what the left should care about is what the Medicare buy-in would have done to the program's target group: the 55- to 64-year-old uninsured. ReidCare will raise Medicaid eligibility to 150 percent of the poverty level—which means near-free health care would be given to all couples, young and old, who make up to $21,855. But what about couples in this age group making, say, $22,000? They won't qualify for Medicaid. The Medicare buy-in, likely their best option, would have cost them around $15,200, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of a previous proposal. Individuals making over 150 percent of the poverty level, or $16,500, would have had to pay $7,600.

In other words, come 2011, when the individual mandate will kick in—if Democrats succeed—the uninsured working poor in the 55-to-64 age group would have had to fork over a whopping 50 percent to 70 percent of their income to buy into Medicare. Sen. Reid planned to help these folks with subsidies ... by 2014. But what were they supposed to live on until then? His good intentions? How could he and his comrades in good conscience believe it is right to force people to buy coverage now—under threat of fines or jail, mind you—while leaving any relief to the vagaries of politics years from now?...