To the Editor:As I listened to some of the testimony on Medicaid expansion (LD 1578) today, a few things came to mind.
First – Expecting the Federal Government to pay 100% of the cost of expansion for the first three years, and 90% after that, is something like this: The Feds have a credit card with a $4,000 limit, and the current balance on the card is $21,000, $17.000 over the credit limit. They tell us to go ahead and expand Medicaid enrollment, and to charge the cost to their credit card. Then they send the credit card bill to every taxpayer.
Second – Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson: “The art of economics consistsin looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer term effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”
Third – “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” ― Thomas Sowell
Pem Schaeffer
Brunswick
Brunswick