Yet Another Healthcare Thread - A Question About Statistics

1. 63

   Lisa HWposted 14 years ago

   http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/2 … 46-million
   
   This is a "genuine" question.  (In other words, I don't know what to believe any more than a lot of people do, when it comes to statistics we're hearing.)
   
   The above article (yes, it was written by someone from "The Right") paints a very different picture of uninsured Americans than a lot of material (often written by "The Left"). 
   
   I'd be interested to see if others can provide legitimate reasons/facts/resources to dispute what is presented in the above the link.
   
   I do know that in Massachusetts (famous for the Mitt Romney "everybody-gets-insurance-whether-they-want-it-or-not" plan) it took a law to get people to either apply for "welfare insurance" (for people under a certain income level, either no cost to the person or else low cost) or else get into whatever plan you can to get people who were opting out of health insurance to sign up.  Many people resented the plan because they didn't want to spend on health insurance if they didn't think they really needed it.  In other words, I do know that (often) young, healthy, people opting out of paying for their own health insurance was a big enough issue to be well publicized when the Massachusetts health insurance thing was going into effect.
   
   If we are to be able to believe what is presented in the above link, that means there are a relatively few Americans who can't afford health insurance; and offering them insurance should not be all that difficult.
   
   Of course, the other part of the health-care problem is rising costs that will make it more difficult for more people to afford health-care costs in the future.  That, though, is a different problem than making sure the poor have health insurance.  How that should be addressed is a separate issue.
   
   (Just as an aside for non-American Hubbers interested in this debate; and not that this is particularly a great way to be dealing with giving treatment to the poor; it is at least worth noting that poor Americans are not left without treatment when they go to Emergency rooms.  "Even being without insurance still doesn't mean they won't have access to care, because federal law forbids hospitals from denying treatment to patients who show up at the emergency rooms." (Philip Klein)  The problem with this, of course, is that they don't (can't) pay for their treatment - and someone has to, so the cost of health-care goes up.  Still, the point is that poor Americans will not be denied treatment.)

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