The reason? Turns out that people who could afford health insurance were dropping their private care in exchange for the public-funded program. That, combined with a budget shortfall, made the program apparently unaffordable and abused. You don’t say.

Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

“People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,” said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. “I don’t believe that was the intent of the program.”

The intention was good, truth be told. Keiki Care was passed in 2007 to provide children up to 18 with healthcare if their parents couldn’t afford it. But, as opponents of a similar nationwide system have argued, it got abused and too costly. People were dropping the insurance they could afford in order to take a state-subsidized policy.

State health officials argued that most of the children enrolled in the universal child care program previously had private health insurance, indicating that it was helping those who didn’t need it.

When you give people the option of paying for their own insurance (even if they can afford it) or having Momma Government pay for it for them, quite a few will take the latter option. They drop their private care and suddenly Joe Taxpayer is paying for healthcare for people who can already afford their own.