Michael Cannon from Cato doesn’t like the idea that we’re going to cover children by putting them into Medicaid. To tell the truth I don’t like it either. He points to a NEJM study that shows–in the no shit, Sherlock department–that Medicaid recipients wait longer for care. My guess is that Michael’s solution is to a) do nothing or b) give Medicaid recipients a fund to pay for their own care–a fund that real life shows us will be cut as soon as budgets get tight (and as has happened nation-wide under S-CHIP). My solution is to put those kids in the same system as everyone else. But the real politics of the US is that–for now–Medicaid expansion is the best we’re getting. As soon as it’s done we should be working to abolish Medicaid by integrating it into a rational single system so that children (and adults) do not get discriminated against in medical care simply because they chose their parents poorly.