New SC government healthcare program not likely to provoke personal responsibility

Healthy Connections is a
concession to the demand from the
left for more government  healthcare.

Healthy Connection or Healthy Concession?


The South Carolina media is championing a new $48-million, Medicaid-related program called “SC Healthy Connections Checkup.”

SC HHS Director Tony Keck, on Tuesday, explained one of the reasons for the program.

He said discovering cancer early (through Healthy Connections) would be a step forward, considering people are showing up now at the emergency rooms with late-stage cancer.

But the truth is - and most politicians or the media would never admit this - preventive programs are difficult to implement among Medicaid-level patients.

To get a check-up or to follow-up on a health issue, in advance, is not as common among those who qualify for assistance. If you are not prone to astute planning in the other areas of your life, you are not likely going to be vigilant about healthcare, even if it's free.

It's why so many free-healthcare recipients clog emergency rooms, many times with non-emergency symptoms. It's a form of going to the doctor. It's the most-costly level of healthcare, but the recipients are not paying, so they do not have to consider price. A non-Medicaid payer is guided by how much it is going to cost and acts accordingly. But the ER cold patient drives healthcare costs through the roof for the rest. 

The new SC program, Healthy Connections, is scheduled to begin on Aug. 1 for anyone in South Carolina earning less-than $22,500 annually.

The new program, advocated by Gov. Nikki Haley, "covers screenings and some procedures related to family planning and sexually transmitted diseases" according to a newspaper report.

Cost-ignorant advocates from the left already want more taxpayer funded coverage.

“Telling someone they have colorectal cancer then they don’t have any services available (to pay for it)  is devastating,” said Sue Berkowitz, director of the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center.

It is a common tactic. First the left, through the misery suffered by others, solidifies the premise that we all must pay for their broad programs. Then they attack us for not agreeing. The approach has been wildly successful for them.

Basically Healthy Connections is expansion of Medicaid after the much-larger, federally-pushed expansion of Medicaid was rejected by Haley and S.C. legislators.

Politically, Healthy Connections is a good idea, if you want to hold down costs, but still do something different and say you did something. The program is likely the route of least damage to the already-convoluted, ill-conceived and overpriced free healthcare system.

Chances are few of the eligible will get the check-ups being handed out to them.

The state already has a Medicaid program similar to Healthy Connections, called Family Planning.

Family Planning has an enrollment of 107,000, but 300,000 qualify for it.The number of people actually using Family Planning was not published. 

As a practical matter, healthcare advocates in the non-profit community have a hard time getting the eligible to use check-up programs. It is just not a way they are likely to address their health issues.

But the media, and government expansion proponents are hailing Healthy Connections because it is program expansion. It is not all they want, but they figure that will come later.