The South Carolina NAACP vows to fight the wholesale reform of the state's Medicaid system, which provides health coverage for 850,000 of the state's poorer residents. The NAACP's skepticism is appropriate and should be welcomed in the debate, but its outright opposition is premature.

Gov. Mark Sanford's plan, if approved by the federal government, would give Medicaid recipients -- mostly mothers with children -- a fixed amount of money in personal health accounts to pay for their medical expenses. Patients could use the account to buy medical insurance that could range from a high-deductible plan to a full-service program. Any money left over could be used to pay deductibles with a debit card at the hospital, doctor's office or pharmacy.

The reform plan is needed to control the exploding cost of Medicaid, which now consumes 14 percent of the state budget, or a little over $1 billion. (With federal matching funds, a total of $4.2 billion is spent on Medicaid in South Carolina.) Without any changes, at the current rate of growth, Medicaid would account for 29 percent of the state budget in 2015 and 41 percent in 2020.

But Sanford has promised that the reform plan would both contain the rising costs of health care and improve health services for Medicaid recipients. He should be given the opportunity to make good on that pledge.