The facts about health coverage in America

Senator Moynihan once famously observed that people are entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts. Given the plethora of numbers being strewn about as to the number of Americans unable to get health coverage, Senator Moynihan must be spinning in his grave.

President Obama, himself, has claimed both that 45 million Americans and 30 million Americans are uninsured. That is quite a spread, especially coming from a single source. A recent article sheds some much-needed light on this issue. Jeffrey H. Anderson, writing in the Washington Post (here), analyzed the Census Bureau's numbers and points out the following: while 46 million people are counted as uninsured, 9 million of those are not U.S. citizens. Moreover, the Census, itself, states that about 9 million people under report their coverage. So, according to Census data, 90% of Americans have health coverage.

Of the 28 million uninsured -- whom President Obama claims "cannot get coverage" -- 18% are between the ages of 18 and 34. For many of these young and healthy individuals, health insurance is a poor bargain that they simply choose to forego. Tellingly, almost half of the uninsured make more than $50,000 a year (more than a quarter make more than $75,000 a year). In short, 95% of Americans either have health coverage or could readily afford to purchase it if they chose to.

So President Obama's plan (he doesn't really have one, but, like him, we'll pretend he does) will cover the remaining 5% of Americans, right? Well, no. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 6% of Americans will remain uninsured even 10 years after the $1 trillion Senate Finance Committee bill is enacted into law (God forbid). So, according to the government's own statistics, Obama's proposed trillion dollar government takeover of our health care system will accomplish precisely nothing.

Let the debate begin.