The Uninsured “Crisis”

posted at 12:22 pm on May 13, 2009 by Laura
[ Healthcare ]    printer-friendly

The New York Times predictably stepped up its scare tactics about the uninsured just when it will do the Obama administration the most good. They’ve tacked another three million to the already deceptive “47 million uninsured” number that the media has been promoting for some time. Now they describe the number of uninsured people as “roughly 50 million people.” The bread and butter of the advocacy media: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Here are some inconvenient truths about those uninsured people: a lot of them are not citizens, and a lot of them could afford health insurance but don’t want it. Hardly a crisis worth nationalizing 17% of our economy. Here’s a very interesting breakdown:

And here are some brief examples of how people will be affected by Obamacare:

More here. Health care has always been rationed. Right now, it’s rationed mainly by out of pocket costs to the consumer. When you have to pay for it yourself, like when you are uninsured or have a high deductible plan, you choose to use less. But basic care and life-saving care is available to every human being who manages to set foot in this country, regardless of their ability to pay.

Thanks to EMTALA, emergency rooms are required to help you. And that is why healthcare in the United States costs more per capita than many other countries – we use it more, and often unwisely. Because it’s more available, unlike in other countries where they spend less because there is less to have. Allowing the government to make those decisions for us is foolish in the extreme. If you’re not enthused about the job that the IRS, DHS, and ICE are doing, why would you allow these people the authority to govern your health care? It will result in the lowest common denominator: McHealthcare. First under the bus when people finally realize that “free” isn’t, will be Grandma.

Thanks to hundreds of thousands of charity hospitals and community health centers – via both charities and government – you can get free or sliding-scale payment care. Some people do fall through the cracks in this system, but overall it’s doing a really good job, which is why people from Canada come here for brain surgery they can’t get at home. Would you rather be told you can’t get treatment unless you pay (where at least you can try to get the money) or that you can’t get treatment because the government says so?

Obama says “the stars are aligned” to implement the changes he wants. What he really means is Congress is aligned, and that he wants to ram this through the way they did the stimulus package – unread, undebated, and unworkable.

Added: While I was writing this, Karl was posting on the fact that the Dems are digging under the couch cushions to figure out how to pay for this.

Cross-posted at Pursuing Holiness.

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