Today, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post is proudly crowing that Gallup has found that the number of uninsured Americans has declined to only 15.9% of the population. Sargent indicates that this is due to Obamacare, although he is careful to say that there is no clear proof to that effect. Sargent is particularly proud that the decline came in a figure that was 17.1% uninsured six months ago. Does that sound good to you? It may, but you need to put these statistics in proper context to understand them.
First of all, 17.1% of Americans is around 53 million people. Cutting that percentage to 15.9% would mean that there are about 3.3 million more people with insurance today than was the case six months ago. Of course, these figures are based upon polls by Gallup and not the actual numbers of people who gained insurance. That means that each of the percentages could be higher or lower by the margin of error. Gallup's polls could actually indicate that there are 3% more uninsured people today or that the number declined by 5%. Only the actual figures of newly insured people will tell us the real truth.
Let's use the figure that Sargent promotes, however, to see what that means. Sargent is happy because 3.3 million more people have insurance. Remember, however, that Obamacare was supposed to result in 16 million more people having insurance. That additional number was to be 9 million more with Medicaid and seven million more with insurance through the exchanges. In other words, the figure which is giving Sargent such pleasure is actually about 80% low compared to the goal of the program and there is only twenty days left until the initial sign up period has ended. Even worse, we know from the government figures that roughly 2.3 million people had obtained Medicaid coverage for the first time as of the end of February. That means that of the newly insured, only one million are people who bought coverage on the exchanges. Simply put, these are disastrous numbers. They indicate the total failure of Obamacare.
Remember that the entire American healthcare industry has been upended with the passage of Obamacare. Literally trillions of dollars will be spent on this system over the next decade. Millions of people lost access to their doctors. Millions more lost access to their hospitals. Then their are the millions who had to switch insurance plans or who lost coverage due to Obamacare mandated changes. On top of this, there is an enormous new bureaucracy and many, many heavy taxes placed on the economy. Was all this done just to get insurance coverage for 3.3 million people? Did that make sense? The federal government could just have left things as they were and purchased health insurance for 3.3 million people without all the rest of the Obamacare mess. If the cost of the policies was $800 per month (a rather hefty premium), the total annual cost of the program would have been 33 billion dollars. Over ten years that would mean a cost of 330 billion dollars instead of two and a half trillion dollars. Of course, the people who are now suffering through the poor coverage of Medicaid through Obamacare would have full private health insurance and much better care.
What all this means is that the numbers of which Sargent is so proud are actually proof positive of the total failure of Obamacare.
First of all, 17.1% of Americans is around 53 million people. Cutting that percentage to 15.9% would mean that there are about 3.3 million more people with insurance today than was the case six months ago. Of course, these figures are based upon polls by Gallup and not the actual numbers of people who gained insurance. That means that each of the percentages could be higher or lower by the margin of error. Gallup's polls could actually indicate that there are 3% more uninsured people today or that the number declined by 5%. Only the actual figures of newly insured people will tell us the real truth.
Let's use the figure that Sargent promotes, however, to see what that means. Sargent is happy because 3.3 million more people have insurance. Remember, however, that Obamacare was supposed to result in 16 million more people having insurance. That additional number was to be 9 million more with Medicaid and seven million more with insurance through the exchanges. In other words, the figure which is giving Sargent such pleasure is actually about 80% low compared to the goal of the program and there is only twenty days left until the initial sign up period has ended. Even worse, we know from the government figures that roughly 2.3 million people had obtained Medicaid coverage for the first time as of the end of February. That means that of the newly insured, only one million are people who bought coverage on the exchanges. Simply put, these are disastrous numbers. They indicate the total failure of Obamacare.
Remember that the entire American healthcare industry has been upended with the passage of Obamacare. Literally trillions of dollars will be spent on this system over the next decade. Millions of people lost access to their doctors. Millions more lost access to their hospitals. Then their are the millions who had to switch insurance plans or who lost coverage due to Obamacare mandated changes. On top of this, there is an enormous new bureaucracy and many, many heavy taxes placed on the economy. Was all this done just to get insurance coverage for 3.3 million people? Did that make sense? The federal government could just have left things as they were and purchased health insurance for 3.3 million people without all the rest of the Obamacare mess. If the cost of the policies was $800 per month (a rather hefty premium), the total annual cost of the program would have been 33 billion dollars. Over ten years that would mean a cost of 330 billion dollars instead of two and a half trillion dollars. Of course, the people who are now suffering through the poor coverage of Medicaid through Obamacare would have full private health insurance and much better care.
What all this means is that the numbers of which Sargent is so proud are actually proof positive of the total failure of Obamacare.
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