The Real Number of Uninsured Americans

The Weekly Standard examines the myth published in the Huffington Post that there are 50 million Americans without health insurance. In reading the article you will find:

Total claimed by the Huffington Post:                                  50 million
Take out those on Medicaid                                                          -  8     "
Eliminate non-citizens                                                                     -10    "
Less those that elect not to buy insurance                        -20    "
Balance without insurance that can't afford it                 12 million


There is a cheaper and less intrusive way, for even the nanny state, to cover this group that represent less than 5% of the population.  Destroying the best medical system in the world for the 95% in order to cover the last 5% is not done for humanitarian purposes.  It is the Socialist's thinking, pure and simple.

Excerpt: 

 Even the Census’s CPS ASEC report shows that the number of uninsured Americans is 32 million (not 50 million). It also shows that almost half of these 32 million make more money than most Americans. And Gallup shows that nearly 20 million of these 32 million say they are already happy with their health care. That leaves something on the order of 12 million Americans who are uninsured andunhappy with their health care — less than 5 percent of the citizenry. 

The easiest way to help these less-than-5 percent of Americans is to fix the unfairness in the federal tax code, which forces most people who don’t get health insurance through their employer to try to buy it with post-tax dollars, while the vast majority of Americans buy it with pre-tax dollars (usually through their employer). My small bill proposal estimates that this approach, along with other commonsense provisions, could reduce the number of uninsured Americans by about 10 million people. The small bill would also reduce health costs — without exploding federal spending and deficits, jeopardizing the preexisting health insurance of millions, or compromising Americans’ liberty.

The tale that nearly 50 million Americans are uninsured and lack sufficient health care actually contains two falsehoods in one. In truth, there aren’t anywhere near 50 million uninsured Americans, and — by their own assessment — most uninsured Americans don’t lack sufficient health care. Claims to the contrary may be useful to those who support a government takeover of what will soon be one-fifth of our economy. But they don’t withstand examination any better than do the government-centric solutions that they are designed to advance.

Read the full The Weekly Standard article here.