Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page points out that remaining “deficit neutral” — a demand Obama has made of healthcare reform proposals — is likely to be “achieved” through massive context-dropping. How? Max Baucus’s bill plans to keep costs down for the federal government — by forcing costs onto the states through an enforced expansion of Medicaid.

So, states would have a decreased ability to dictate what services Medicaid must provide, but they’d have an increased responsibility to pay for it. With state after state facing inability to meet budgetary shortfalls, where does Congress think the money to pay for the healthcare tab is going to come from? Blank-out.

Tactics like these are more typically associated with con artists. You know, “This wool coat only costs $19.99!” But the shipping and handling will run you $109.99. A cheap wool coat with the context dropped sounds great. A cheap wool coat, in the context of inflated shipping prices, doesn’t sound like such a good buy. Same goes for health care. “Deficit neutral” may look pretty to members of Congress, but not so much to the governors they’re screwing over — and not to you and me, since we all pay state taxes on top of our federal bill. Don’t fall for the flimflam!

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