Blunt suggests Medicare, Medicaid were mistakes

Rep. Roy Blunt, who is the GOP frontrunner for Senate in Missouri, suggested Friday that the government never should have created Medicare or Medicaid.

Speaking on 93.9 FM in Columbia, Mo., the former House GOP whip, who is leading Republican efforts to counter the Democrats on their health care proposals, said it might have been best if government never got involved in health care in the first place.

“You could certainly argue that government should have never gotten into the health care business, and that might have been the best argument of all to figure out how people could have had more access to the competitive marketplace,” Blunt said. “The government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare and later with Medicaid. And government already distorts the marketplace. A government competitor would drive all of the other competitors away. What we should be doing it creating more competition.”

Here’s the link to the interview. The comments begin at about the 4:52 mark.

Blunt is running, along with Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D), for the seat of retiring Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.).