Here comes the inevitable health-care rationing in the "model plan" for the entire country

Commonwealth Care, the socialized medicine scheme in Massachusetts (and a program we noted the other day is being sued by hospitals in that state for its shameful lack of reimbursement for care for the poor) is dropping 30,000 legal immigrants from coverage because there just isn't enough money left in the kitty to cover the health care costs for everyone, despite the state's promises:

"Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed restoring $70 million to the program, which would partly restore the immigrants’ coverage. But legislative leaders have balked, saying vital programs for other groups would have to be cut as a result." (Emphasis mine)

And so the delicate shell game of rationing begins.

MataHarley of Flopping Aces astutely points out that this is the very group that would be affected most negatively by being cut from the program, and thus seemingly the poorest choice for the chopping block:

"And the legal immigrants cut? They have a double whammy because they do not qualify for other federal aid, including Medicaid."

No matter. They are the ones identified as superfluous by the all-powerful bureaucracy, so off the rolls they go, despite the fact that many of them have paid into the program since its inception three years ago.

Naturally, an easy and simple (at least to the commissars who run this debacle) solution to the problem rears its confiscatory head once again:

"What the state needs, said Philip W. Johnston, chairman of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation and a former state secretary of health and human services, is a dedicated revenue stream to protect its pioneering system from cyclical downturns in the economy.

The revenue, Mr. Johnston said, should come from an income tax surcharge on the wealthiest, as House leaders in Washington have proposed for a federal health plan"

Umm, Mr. Johnston? In case you don't remember, there has already been a massive income tax surcharge imposed in Massachusetts, one that was specifically designed to ensure a "dedicated revenue stream" to pay for Commonwealth Care, to the tune of $912 a year in penalties for an individual who decline to purchase a state government health insurance plan, and let's not forget the separate $1 a pack increase in the state cigarette tax that was also implemented solely to help pay for the program. Apparently those aren't enough of an income redistribution for Mr. Johnston, and zealots of his ilk are hungrily desiring to reach even deeper into the pockets of the peasants.

This breathtakingly expensive and rapidly failing bureaucratic mess on a single-state level is the "elegant solution" that the Messiah, along with Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, is using as a model for the national health care plan they hope to burden the rest of of us with.

Does anyone still think it's an idea well worth burdening the rest of the country with?