Medicaid is a huge handout and also a massive burden, straining resources and tax revenues, and (of course) adding to the debt. It is also known for its complexity, a federal program run by the states.
Some reformers, seeing the program as an over-complicated mess, yearn to “simplify” it by providing medical care as a “free” federal program. Others, concerned about the dangers of centralization and the obvious incompetence of bureaucracies far removed from taxpayers, advise collapsing Medicaid completely back to the states, to be organized and funded locally.
In this context, the Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday allowing South Carolina to remove Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program is instructive.
“The majority opinion in the 6 – 3 decision in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch,” explains Matthew Vadum in The Epoch Times. “The new ruling reverses a federal appeals court decision that blocked South Carolina from excluding Planned Parenthood from the program.”
The key issue in the litigation regards a supposed right to choose medical providers: South Carolina, by dropping Planned Parenthood, was alleged to be abridging the right of recipients to choose their medical providers.
Remember that choosing your doctor was falsely promised by President Barack Obama in his medical insurance scheme — so, obviously, the option is highly valued by Americans. But is it a “right”?
“New rights for some mean new duties for others,” Justice Gorsuch wrote, elucidating a basic principle of legal philosophy.
Applying the idea of rights to government handouts (in which taxpayers are on the hook) is a recipe for disaster.
Applying federalism, on the other hand, makes not only constitutional sense, but — because the states are closer to both taxpayers and those in need — Common Sense.
I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Planned Parenthood Gets the Boot”
On the assumption that one should have a transfer programme in the first place, good arguments might be found for allowing recipients a wide range of choices, or good arguments might be found against allowing recipients some choices.
If the only goal is maximizing the felt sense of well-being of recipients, then restricting spending to one range of commodities, such as medical services, is a very bad idea; people will typically be happiest when just given an allowance to spend freely on anything.
If we’re not going to do that, then we accept that some restrictions make sense, and so the questions are of which and of why.
Planned Parenthood isn’t simply a medical-services provider. It’s also an advocacy group with a dark history, an abortion-services provider, and a seller of fœtal tissues and other parts. Because of the fungibility of money, giving Planned Parenthood funds for activity of one sort enables Planned Parenthood more readily to engage in activities of other sorts; and any honest and informed assessment will be that pregnant women coming to Planned Parenthood for other services will more often be encouraged to consider abortions than they would when going to institutions that do not attempt to normalize fœticide. The Center for Medical Progress, Project Veritas, and O’Keefe Media Group simply cannot recruit and train enough agents to prevent Planned Parenthood from attempting to leverage its position as a medical-services provider.
My position on abortion is very different that of Paul or of his editor, though I certainly object to the murderous standards adopted by the state of California and now by the UK. But I certainly don’t want people who regard any abortion as the killing of a person to be compelled to pay for such killings.
Surely Planned Parenthood is not the only institution that should not be funded by the taxpayer, but it is one such institution.
It’s been said that Medicaid also pays for transgender surgeries. All states should block that, too. Basic medical care should be the focus.