Getting the Drift & Short Shrift

From John Hood's Daily Journal:

RALEIGH – As the month of July drew to a close without an agreement on a FY 2005-07 state budget, one could get the drift of the political debate in Raleigh by glancing down a list of news headlines from the state capital.

“Decimal error leaves lawmakers scrambling over N.C. Health Choice,” stated one item. It seems that state officials erroneously computed how long federal funds will last given the currently projected enrollment in Health Choice, a program created in a fit of ineptitude by a Republican Congress and now enrolling 135,000 children in North Carolina. Supporters typically suggest that these children are “poor” and live in households that can’t afford health insurance, neither of which is correct. Poor children are, by definition, eligible for Medicaid, and most families in the income levels covered by Health Choice are enrolled in private or employer-provided health plans, not in welfare programs.