Health care myths

Obamacare (the Senate version) supposedly is designed to bring the total number of Americans with insurance coverage up to 94% of the total. Right now, there are supposed to be about 31 million uninsured Americans (not including illegal immigrants). This means that the bill will result in insurance for something in the area of 14 million more people. And the cost for this gain will be something like a trillion dollars over the first ten years and much more after that. Still, these figures for costs and results are a sham.

In the first place, the uninsured include about 7-8 million people who simply choose not to buy insurance. Most of these folks are in their 20's and they have decided that they would rather not have the insurance. The Obamacrat bill in the Senate requires these people to buy their own insurance. Thus, they get coverage, but this cost is not included in the cost figures for the bill. That means that there will only be a net pick up of 6-7 million insured people for the trillions spent in the bill.

But there is more! There are supposedly another 3-4 million people who already qualify for government assistance in obtaining insurance who do not take part in these programs. Just by locating these folks and enrolling them in existing programs, we could get the number insured up by another 3 million or so. That means that the number to be insured by the Obamacrats Senate bill is really an additional 3-4 million. If the cost is one trillion dollars (and we ignore the second decade of the program), it means that for 4 million people we will be spending $250,000 per person to get these additional 4 million people insured for 5 years ($50,000 per year). A cost of $50,000 per year for insurance in absolutely ridiculous in any world other than Washington.