What does an Obama presidency mean for health care?

Sally Pipes reports:

Proponents of government-heavy reform believe that because the health care problem itself is massive and complex, we need an equally massive and complex solution. Only the government has the requisite scale, infrastructure, and power to deliver that solution, or so goes the thinking.

More than half of all health care provided in this country is already paid for by the government through Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and health insurance programs for veterans, Native Americans, and other specific populations.

To expand coverage, many suggest that lawmakers should just utilize these programs. Such a move, however, would bankrupt the country. These programs are already bloated and on weak financial footing.

Take Medicaid. Originally set up in 1965 as a safety net for the poor, Medicaid has grown into an enormous welfare program for the middle class as well, covering 53 million Americans. In other words, Medicaid already insures some 15 million more people than the 37 million estimated to be living in poverty, and almost 10 million more than Medicare. In 2006, individual states and the federal government paid out an estimated $338 billion for Medicaid patients.

Outlays for Medicaid amount to 22 percent of state spending and have surpassed even education as the biggest drain on state budgets. And that's just the national average. In Medicaid-heavy states like Florida, the program is projected to consume nearly 60 percent of the state's budget by 2015.

You'll want to read the whole article.