"Welfare" for the rich

For the past few weeks, we've been hearing all sorts of warnings about welfare and slavery and socialist devastation that will inevitably come from providing health care to parents who make up to half of the federal poverty level.  Those lazy, "able-bodied" welfare beneficiaries just need to get out and work, we're told.

But now that the plan to provide health care for those up making up to 50% of the federal poverty level has failed, the Republicans may be coalescing on a new plan: providing health insurance to high-risk individuals, "no matter what their income is."

I don't understand why it's unreasonable to help the working poor, but completely reasonable to help out the rich -- but then again, I don't understand a lot of why the GOP majorities in the Capitol do a lot of things.

Of course, the resistance to government programs targeting the working poor and middle class -- and remarkable openness to programs benefiting the wealthy -- isn't a new phenomenon. In 1998, for example, Gov. Mel Carnahan sought state funding to take advantage of federal dollars that would help 90,000 uninsured Missouri children get health care. The proposal was to provide health care for children of parents making up to 300% of the poverty line; GOP opponents called it "Medicaid for Millionaires."

A lot of Republican legislators didn't like the plan. They argued that it would amount to "Medicaid for Millionaires" for a family of four earning as much as $ 49,000 to qualify for the program.

Republican Rep. Chuck Purgason of Caulfield opined that people would choose to spend their money on luxuries because the government would be paying for their children's insurance.

"I could buy that bass boat because Medicaid paid for my kid's insurance," he said. [KC Star, 5/14/1998]

Or:

House Minority Leader Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City, chided Carnahan for spending money on "Cadillac prisons and Medicaid for millionaires."

The Medicaid comment is in response to Carnahan's desire to extend Medicaid coverage to middle-class households to cover children in families that earn up to three times the federal poverty level. All children, even those of rich families, would be eligible for Medicaid in school districts with high concentrations of poor children. [Post-Dispatch, 1/22/1998]

And:

Senate Republican leader Steve Ehlmann and House GOP leader Delbert Scott responded to the governor's address in a news conference. They blasted various Carnahan proposals and said they wanted instead to institute cuts in state spending and send back a $300 million tax cut to Missourians.

They dubbed the child health-care proposal as "Medicaid for millionaires" and contended that too many children would be covered by the governor's plan. Ehlmann repeated a familiar GOP refrain that he would favor programs that let families care for their children rather than the state.  [KC Star, 1/23/1998]

These arguments about luxurious lifestyles were silly when Republicans were complaining about people making 300% of the poverty level.  But now we're actually talking about millionaires -- individuals who would literally "spend their money on luxuries" because the government would be helping with the medical expenses. 

Oh, how the government becomes less evil when it's helping the wealthy.