Medicaid's awful results: Column

As the Obamacare debacle rolls on -- looking even worse than it did a week ago, if that's possible -- there's a separate but related issue involving Medicaid expansion. And, as with Obamacare, people who oppose the expansion risk being called heartless murderers for "denying sick people care."

The thing is, though, there's a difference between care and coverage. Insurance programs, whether Obamacare or Medicaid, only provide coverage. It's doctors who provide care. But because government insurance programs -- even money-sucking ones like Medicaid, which costs $450 billion a year -- can't pay doctors enough and smother them with paperwork, doctors are hard to find. Without doctors, coverage doesn't mean much.