Health Care: The 45 Million Myth

Politicians and the media are constantly telling us that there are around 45 and million uninsured people in this country.  Investors Business Daily is the latest source to question that lie.

According to "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States," a Census Bureau report published last August, of the 45.6 million persons in the U.S. that did not have health insurance at some point in 2007, 9.7 million, or about 21%, were not U.S. citizens

Does the government intend to cover every non-citizen who sets foot in the country?  If so, this plan should be dead on arrival.  If not, then that leaves about 36 million uninsured.

Also among the uninsured are 17 million Americans who live in households where the annual income exceeds $50,000; 7 million of those without coverage have incomes of $75,000 a year or more.

The notion that the uninsured are without health care is bogus, as well. They consumed an estimated $116 billion worth of health care in 2008, according to the advocacy group Families USA. Many of the uninsured are young and healthy (40% are between ages 18 and 34) and at this point in their lives, particularly in this economy, choose to put their dollars elsewhere.

Alright, so they’re counting about 17 million people who could afford it if they really wanted to, but who are young and healthy and don’t feel they need it, or who choose to spend their money on other things.  In other words they’re exercising the freedom to not participate in an insurance program.  So forget about them.  That puts us down to about 20 million uninsured.

The census bureau also estimates that less than 30% of the non-elderly uninsured go without health insurance for more than a year.  These are people who are between jobs, and who acquire coverage within a short period of time.  And they’re rarely the same people who go without coverage year after year.  But they’re still counted in this huge, bogus number.

Furthermore, the elderly and the infirm and all children already have access to government health care.

So that leaves about 8-12 million people out of about 300 million who live here among the chronically uninsured.  About 3% of us. And Barack Obama and his allies want to radically restructure our current health care system to account for that tiny percentage?  A system that the vast majority of Americans are happy with?