Is Health Care an Entitlement

Harold Meyerson hits the S-CHIP issue right on the nose in the Post today. In making an analogy to public school, he writes:

A free public education is a right, or, if you prefer, an entitlement in
America, because the nation long ago decided that an educated population is a
national good.

The economics are already pretty solidly behind creating a single payer system with incentives for preventative care - see Medicare and the VA. In the aggregate everyone gets more "good health" and pays less.

But, the fundamental political question around S-CHIP, and for that matter the entire health care reform debate, is whether or not everyone is entitled to access health care. If your parents are poor, or your mom's company just decided to stop providing insurance, should you be able to go see a doctor with anything less than an emergency problem?