Much ado about very little
OK. Tonight is the big night where Obama tries to reset the conversation. We are going to hear about the rising costs and the 46 Million people who are uninsured, and that we need a major overhaul of our entire health care system. He'll probably leave out the "everybody needs to sacrifice" part this time.
Let's step back for a second and think about this. There are 300 Million people in the United States. 46 Million of them are uninsured. That is 15% of the population. It has been reported that 18% of the uninsured are already eligible for medicaid but have not signed up. So they don't really count. They already have insurance coverage available to them. These reforms change nothing for the 8 million uninsured, but could be insured. It has been reported that 30% of the uninsured could get insurance from work, but elect not to. The preponderance of the 14 million who could get insurance from their employer are young healthy individuals who have calculated their risk versus the cost and decided that they'll keep their money and pay as they go when they do need health care services. Not something I would recommend for my children. The young rarely worry about catastrophic care because they think they are indestructable. It is highly doubtful that the $950 penalty the government is planning to impose on uninsured individuals will change the calculation enough to make them fork over the thousands they keep by not joining their employers insurance plan. Then there are at least, I repeat at least 12 million illegal aliens in the United States. Reportedly there are between 12 and 24 million illegal aliens in the United States. Let's use the low ball number of 12 million. The government has admitted that illegal aliens are counted in that 46 million people uninsured statistic. The democrats have reassured Americans that illegal aliens will not be eligible for the public option.
So, when you crunch these numbers it turns out that we are looking at a major government take over of health care in the name of helping 4% of the population. The Obama administration and the left wing of the democratic party has determined that changing everyone's heath care to help 4% of the U.S. population is the right thing to do. We need to risk government rationing of health care to help 4%. We need to risk the government controlling our lives in the name of health care cost reduction so that we can help 4% of the population.
If medicaid is so great, just put these 12 million people on medicaid and leave the rest of us alone!
