California politicians like Senator Sheila Kuehl believe that they can run health care better than Californians themselves can.  Here's a question for anyone tempted to believe this: Will the government-monopoly health care "system" work better or worse than Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program?

The news on Medi-Cal gets grimmer by the day.  Despite out-of-control spending going way back, it clearly fails to serve the needs of Californians who use it.

Today, the Sacramento Bee wrote about patients and providers who are utterly dependent Medi-Cal.  Because the state is failing to resolve its budget crisis, the governor has delayed Medi-Cal payments for two weeks, starting this month. 

Can you imagine what would happen if a private health plan simply announced it wasn't going to pay any claims for two weeks?  Actually, most states have laws (on "clean claims" processing) that make such delays illegal for private payers.

Or, let's put it another way: suppose your employer simply announced everyone's paycheck was going to be delayed two weeks.

Effectively, it would be a declaration of bankruptcy.  But state-run health care is not just fiscally bankrupt, but morally bankrupt, too.  The tragic stories in today's newspaper show it all to clearly.