I've discussed this lie before, but it seems to be back in circulation again. Here is a fact sheet on the number of uninsured Americans.
First, about 10 million of those counted as uninsured are illegal aliens. They are not eligible for health insurance benefits, which is why they don't have them.
Second, a large part of the remaining uninsured are people making over $50,000 per year who choose not to get health insurance. These aren't poor people; they are people willing to gamble that they won't get sick. How do I know? I've been among those people.
As many readers of this blog know, my husband had thyroid cancer, which made him ineligible to receive health insurance from most insurers. This isn't that the insurance was too expensive; this is there was no insurance available. I could get insurance for myself and my children, but chose not to do so because the monthly premiums, while not outrageous, were more than I wanted to pay.
That's crazy!!! You might be saying. But people make choices all the time that you might think are crazy. And it isn't like health care was not available. We still went for regular office visits and emergency care when needed, but we paid for it ourselves.
My problem with health insurance is that once you've got a pre-existing condition, it can be difficult or impossible to get any kind of health insurance. As my husband said, "Why can't I get accident insurance? How does having thyroid cancer affect a broken leg?" The truth is, a lot of people might only want accident insurance or catastrophic insurance but can't get it. If the government wants to find a way to regulate that, I'm all for it.
But the argument that "40 million Americans are uninsured" simply isn't true. Most of those who have no insurance choose not to get it. Only a tiny fraction of that 40 to 50 million figure are actually people who make less than $50,000 per year and do not qualify for a government program.
Liberal non-profit Kaiser Family Foundation put the number of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for government programs and make less than $50,000 a year between 8.2 million and 13.9 million. (The 8.2 million figure includes only those uninsured for two years or more.)
8.2 million. That's a lot fewer people than 50 million, or even 40 million. Which is why socialized medicine peddlers don't use it.
And the kicker is, according to the Congressional Budget Office,
36 million people would remain uninsured even if the Senate’s $1.6 trillion health care plan is passed.
Why? Because people make lots of decisions about health care that have nothing to do with costs. Spending money we don't have on "health care" that people won't have is wasteful and wrong.
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