One of My Takes on Health Care

Maybe President Obama, instead of portraying opponents of his version of
heath-care reform as liars, should cast out the mote in his own eye. (Oh no! I used a Biblical reference – must be one of those conservative right wing Know-Nothings storming the town hall meetings from coast to coast!) From him and his White House (read David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel) has flowed a never-ending stream of misinformation, disinformation, exaggerations and just plain baloney.

Take the oft-repeated claim that 50 million, 60 million or whatever -- take your pick -- Americans have no health insurance, as if our uninsured population is expiring in the nation's gutters because no one (read: Republicans) cares. But what the Obama and Democratic operatives don't tell you is the whole story, and by omitting it, they are themselves lying. Here are the facts:
The estimate of the uninsured comes from the U.S. Bureau of the Census' Current Population Survey, with analysis of the 2007 survey provided by the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation. The total uninsured was 45.7 million (and is likely higher now), but of those, 9.5 million were non-citizens or illegal immigrants; 12 million were eligible for other public health programs but hadn't bothered to sign up; 7.3 million were in families that had income exceeding $84,108 a year and chose not to be covered and 9.1 million were only temporarily uninsured. That leaves 7.8 million lower-income American citizens who are uninsured long-term.

That amounts to about 2.6% of the population. As Ronald Reagan used to say, facts are stubborn things. Do we totally destroy the current system because 2.6% are uninsured long-term, or do we fix the current system to get the numbers down? The Obama administration wants you to believe that covering these 45.7 million people of unequal needs is America's highest health-care reform priority. Truth is, most Americans don't agree. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey last year found half of U.S. voters say making health care and insurance more affordable is the No. 1 health issue; that's twice as much as the second priority, which is expanding coverage for the uninsured.

“Facta, non verba”