How Many Uninsured Are There?

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Yesterday National Review posted an article by Duncan Currie taking a closer look at how many Americans do not have health insurance. 

The article states:

"According to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), that's roughly how many people (the more precise figure was 45.7 million) lacked health insurance at a given moment in 2007 -- nearly one-sixth of the entire U.S. population. The latest CPS data show that 46.3 million were uninsured at a given moment in 2008."

The article explains why that figure is misleading.  Economist Keith Hennessey has analyzed the numbers and come to a very different conclusion.  Many of the people currently enrolled in government insurance programs such as the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) were not counted as enrolled (a phenomenon known as the "Medicaid undercount").   Many people eligible for federal programs were not enrolled, some of the uninsured were illegal aliens, many were childless adults between 18 and 34 years old, and many of the uninsured were families earning well above the poverty level who simply chose not to have insurance.  When you eliminate all of the above groups of people, the number becomes about 10.6 million Americans who do not have health insurance.

The article concludes:

"The emergence of such a (dynamic, conpetitive market for individual insurance)...would not guarantee universal health-insurance coverage -- but neither would the Baucus bill, according to the CBO. Health-care reforms that reduced costs, increased value, enhanced insurance portability, improved transparency, and promoted competition would also substantially boost coverage. Lawmakers must remember that an expansion of insurance coverage could either mitigate or exacerbate America's underlying health-care problems, depending on how it is achieved. Implementing price controls and costly mandates would only make those problems worse."

We need to examine the history of the cost of government programs.  Government programs very rarely (if ever) cost less than their predicted cost.  The also tend to be less effective than the private sector because they do not have to be efficient--there is no reason to be efficient--there is no profit involved.  Please read the article at National Review.  It is long, but has a lot of good ideas on the subject of health insurance reform.

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This page contains a single entry by Granny G published on October 27, 2009 6:52 AM.

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