Say Anything Blog

Here’s an idea that hasn’t been thought through by someone.

San Francisco, unwilling to wait and see if Hillary and/or her ilk will destroy the health care system in America in favor of socialized medicine, has decided to go ahead and institute its own kumbaya health program.

They’ve decided, in their wisdom, to set up twenty-two health clinics that will provide free health care to about 82,000 uninsured residents of the city. It’s free for them, that is, but it will cost the people of California who are responsible enough to pay taxes about $200 million dollars a year. Let me say that again: This will cost taxpayers two hundred milllion dollars. Each and every year. But, here’s the part that I don’t think has been thought through:

That $200 million dollars will pay for the free health care for those 82,000 uninsured residents. So….what happens when this program becomes a magnet for tens of thousands more? What happens when people all over the country, legal and illegal, suddenly decide that San Francisco is the place to be and flood that city? That 82,000 uninsured will become many more than that. The program will collapse of its own weight and San Francisco will be stuck with a huge number of new low income residents.

There are other caveats to the program, one of which reinforces the point I just brought up. If the participant leaves the city the program does not cover them. So….why leave the city? It’s just a hunch but I suspect the quality of life in San Francisco is about to plummet faster that Britney Spears’ career.

This is a preview of things to come if the socialists, er, Democrats have their way and institute what they think we should have for health care. Note: THEY don’t have to participate. Our Capitol Hill denizens have their own top-shelf health care system. The health programs they are designing are for us peasants, not them. Convenient, eh?

I’m sure that San Fransisco’s ruling elite mean well with their new program. I just don’t think they have a sufficient grasp on reality to run an ice cream truck, much less a city like San Francisco. I could be wrong, of course. But in this case the obvious is, well, obvious. The uninsured homeless will flock to San Francisco and the cost to the citizens of California will be astronomical, either in the direct spending involved in support of the health care program or through other existing programs such as welfare and unemployment, which are bound to rise.

And what seemed to be a good idea at the time will be an albatross around the entire state of California’s neck.