Hawaii Drops Universal Child Healthcare After Only Seven Months

The law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head in Hawaii:

HONOLULU — Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.

Gov. Linda Lingle's administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."

What did they think was going to happen? Of course people were going to quit paying for something if the government was going to give it to them for free. At least the governor had the courage to cancel the program rather than continue on a course that would cripple the state budget while not actually improving health care for anybody.