Realizing Harmony

And from July…
…..
I just read an interesting blog post about the number of people in America who don’t have health insurance.

We’ve all heard the number… Every Democrat, from the President down to the various hacks that show up on the news channels, claim there are 50 million people in America without health insurance. They really mean 46.7 million, but they are rounding up… But that isn’t the issue with the number.

The issue with the number has to do with what happens when you start to break down the numbers…

* 45,700,000 without insurance
* -9,700,000 that are illegal aliens
* -17,600,000 that earn more than $50k year and could afford insurance (9.1M earn over $75k)
* -14,000,000 that are eligible for programs but just haven’t signed up

That leaves us with 6.2 million (about 2% of the population) people that can’t get coverage. [D's note: those numbers don't add up. However, the Red Cross has estimated that there were approximately that many who couldn't get insurance. So I'll let it slide.] But if we want to get picky, we can further erode this number…

* About 1/3 of the “uninsured” are the invincible. These are people under 34 that CHOOSE not to pay for coverage they don’t feel they need. [D's note: I believe these would ALL fall in under those who "just haven't signed up."]
* There are estimates that 1/3 to 1/2 of the people that are uninsured are not chronically uninsured… that means that they only lack coverage for a short time while between jobs… Only about 1/2 lack insurance for 12 months or more.

Obviously there are some overlapping numbers in there… But you get the idea. Search Google for 46 million myth…

A bit later he made the following statement:

The current proposal in front of the Congress and Senate seeks to spend between $1trillion and $1.5trillion dollars. Much of the cost is “backloaded” on these proposals, meaning that keeping them up will cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year after the first ten years. And these proposals, as scored by the (non-partisan) Congressional Budget Office say that 95%-97% of the population would be covered… Odd that only 2% of legal residents are unable to get coverage now… And after spending over a trillion dollars, we won’t be doing that much better…

“We won’t be doing that much better”?!?

Going from 2% unable to get coverage up to 3-5% unable to get coverage… that sounds like we’ll be doing a whole lot worse!

Using the kind of reporting the “Mainstream” media provided when President Bush was in office and home foreclosures began to predictably increase… this health care reform proposal will increase the un-insured at least 50% if not 150%! (Here’s an example of how the home foreclosures were reported. Note at one point they mention an increase from 1.8% all the way up to 4.6%, which in alarmist terms is a 256% increase.)

Doesn’t saying “the rate of the un-insured will increase 50-150%” sound a lot more terrifying than saying it “will increase from 2% up to 3-5%”?

The fact of the matter is, under this proposal more people will be un-insured, and the cost of this new program will be astronomically higher.

And this predicted 150% increase in un-insured Americans is something that, according to the President and the majority-party leadership, “needs” to be rushed through so fast that there will (once again) be no time for anyone to read it, much less debate it.

Why are they so desperate to get it passed quickly? I think it’s because it will give them more power to control lives… and therefore, votes.

The author didn’t stop there. He went on to address those who claim that there is inadequate access to medical care…

One other thing to keep in mind is that federal law requires that hospitals treat ANYONE that comes to them with an immediate need. There isn’t a requirement for insurance… they MUST be treated. There are also free clinics and other outlets for free or inexpensive care for those that need it. That means that there IS care available for just about everyone in America, even if they don’t have insurance.

Let’s contrast that with Canada…

We can talk about long waits and lack of proper equipment. There are loads of stories about waiting a year or more for hip or knee replacement, waiting a year or more for MRIs and as long as two years to see a specialist… those stories are everywhere…

But there is a deeper problem in Canada… There aren’t enough doctors. There are 1.2 million Canadians that can’t find a doctor in their area that will accept them. Doesn’t seem like that many compared to 6.2 million Americans that can’t get health insurance, right? Well, that 1.2 million Canadians represents 5% of the population, compared with 2% of Americans that could be limited to emergency room care. Additionally, there are another 2.4 million people that say they haven’t looked… But that means that 15% of the Canadian population don’t have a doctor.

So, all isn’t honey and biscuits in the Land of Winter.

Back to the USA…

Since we are already staring at a $1.8trillion deficit for THIS year… four times bigger than the deficit last year… is it really the appropriate time to take this on? Further, there are two giant federal programs that are looking at serious problems in just a few years… Medicare and Social Security are looking at their breaking dates. For Medicare, in 2016 they will be spending money that is not in their trust accounts. Social Security will be there a couple of years later.

Maybe we should make sure that the promises already made can be kept before we make more promises…