The Greising-Davis combine

How is David Greising (D.-ChiTrib) like Rep. Danny Davis (D.-IL)? 

Give up? 

Neither considers cost of national health care relevant.

Delegate Greising, who has a column:

There are some who see the problems with programs in Maine and Massachusetts and argue that is the reason the federal government cannot afford to meddle in health care.

But with health care insurance premiums eating up 18 percent of the typical family’s income, en route toward a 24 percent bite in 10 years if nothing is done to “bend” the cost curve downward, it’s not a question of whether the federal government can afford to meddle in health care more than it already does.

We already know where Rep. Davis stands.  “No price is too high for quality health care,” he said in a townhall meeting at Malcolm X College on Aug. 22.

Greising has an explanation: The high-cost Maine and Massachusetts insurance programs “show that government intervention is better than no action at all,” because “[t]he only way to bend the cost curve is to adopt national efforts, while remembering the lessons of Maine.”

Which are that if you provide health insurance, you spend more than you thought and/or run out of money.

In Mass. costs doubled in two years.  In Maine the state ran out of money after enrolling only 10% of the previously not enrolled.

Like Audrey in “Little Shop of Horrors,” Maine and Mass. want more.  Which in addition to her sense of civic responsibility may explain why Olympia Snowe voted the way she did.

Rep. Greising is all for “mandates,” as he puts it, in quotes.  Some object, but they merely

want minimal government and . . . apparently, are comfortable living in a country where people can “free ride” the system by not buying insurance, knowing all along that the taxpayers or hospitals will come to the rescue should they get terribly sick.

Apparently.