Reducing poverty and providing good health care---on the evils of Government.

Public programs lifted 40 million people out of poverty in 2011, including almost 9 million children.

Is this one of the evils of Government that Republicans keep speaking of?

Arloc Sherman with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has more (Why Deficit Reduction Must Protect Effective Low-Income Programs):

In addition, Medicaid provided access to affordable health care to more than 60 million people in 2009; thanks to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), children are much less likely to be uninsured than adults.

Some leading researchers in the field have conducted a comprehensive review of the available research and data on how safety net programs affect poverty.  They found that the safety net lowers the poverty rate by about 14 percentage points (even after accounting for any potential negative effects on work incentives, which the research finds to be small).  In other words, one of every seven Americans would be poor without the safety net.  That translates into more than 40 million people.

Policymakers can make some money-saving changes in programs for low- and moderate-income individuals or families without unduly burdening those populations.  But the achievable savings through greater efficiencies in means-tested programs are modest.  In particular, the largest means-tested program — Medicaid — already provides health care coverage at a substantially lower cost per beneficiary than private coverage.

Hmmm... decreasing poverty and more efficient cost-effective health care than the private sector?  Truly evil...

No wonder big businesses in the health care sector hate Government spending--Government is providing a better product and rent seeking businessmen are terrified their customers will find out and demand some of the cost effective health care themselves.