More from the “we had to pass the bill so you can see what’s in it” file

Just another “glitch” in the monstrous ObamaCare bill – according to the AP (via Aaron Worthing):

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That’s because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.

Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night.

“I don’t generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn’t make sense,” Foster said during a question-and-answer session at a recent professional society meeting.

“This is a situation that got no attention at all,” added Foster. “And even now, as I raise the issue with various policymakers, people are not rushing to say … we need to do something about this.”

Indeed, administration officials and senior Democratic lawmakers say it’s not a loophole but the result of a well-meaning effort to simplify rules for deciding who will get help with insurance costs under the new health care law. Instead of a hodgepodge of rules, there will be one national policy.

Which was their agenda all along, as Bryan Preston so succinctly points out:

Well, it makes sense if you went into crafting the bill with an agenda to kill off private insurance to force a national move to single payer, government-run health care. And we know from his own words that President Obama believed in that agenda, at least at one time. Democrats now say that this isn’t a glitch at all.

[…]

And it makes sense, if your aim is to get millions more Americans dependent on government services.

Mission accomplished? Let’s hope 2012 leads to the answer being a big fat “hell no” on that one.

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