Back on January 8, the Wall Street Journal ran a fantastic op-ed on Medicaid by the American Enterprise Institute’s Scott Gottlieb. Excerpts:

Accumulating medical data shows that Medicaid recipients’ poor health outcomes aren’t just a function of their underlying medical problems, but a more direct consequence of the program’s shortcomings.…

Now Medicaid is to receive a bolus of federal money, probably as part of the fiscal stimulus plan — the figure whispered in Washington is $100 billion — with no obligation that the program does anything to reverse its decline.…

The troubling evidence about the quality of Medicaid patients’ services is a cautionary tale for Mr. Obama as he sets about to administer more of our health care inside government agencies. Turning Medicaid around should be the least we demand before turning over more of our private health-care market to similar government management.