Kennedy’s Proposed Health Care Reforms Unnecessary, Investors Business Daily Editorial Says

A plan to enter a "new era of health reform" announced June 18 by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) could be "another attempt to socialize health care" and "should frighten sensible Americans," an Investors Business Daily editorial states. Kennedy said he intends to propose several bills in an effort to reduce the number of uninsured, lower health care costs and provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit (Investors Business Daily, 6/20). One measure would require businesses with more than 100 employees to provide health care coverage to their workers and dependents equal to that provided to federal employees, and another would require health companies to cut administrative costs by using new technologies -- a step that he said could ultimately finance universal health coverage (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 6/19). But IBD writes that the health care system in the United States "isn't so bad" and that "no collective problem is building." The editorial suggests that "[f]ew who lack health insurance go without simply because they can't afford it," contending that the uninsured are made up largely of healthy young people who do not want coverage, "free riders [who] know the system will take care of them" and people who feel the premiums are not worth the care received. In addition, the editorial states that seniors are the richest Americans based on median net worth and asks, "Do these folks really need taxpayers' help to buy medicine?" Kennedy has been championing bigger public health care systems "for decades," IBD concludes, stating that he will not let other budget concerns -- such as the war on terrorism -- "get in the way of new government spending for his personal project" (Investors Business Daily, 6/20).