We have argued that* the current health care plan is bad for small business and our country’s economic recovery. Our future, especially our children’s financial future, in large part hinges on the defeat of the current proposal. There needs to be health reform, but not this, not socialized care that hurts the US economy. New studies this week have shown, on a state by state basis, just how many small businesses would be directly impacted by the proposed 5.4% surcharge tax that would be levied to pay for the plan. Opposition to the bill is bi-partisan, but special interests are strong. In order to effectively oppose this, small business owners and employees need to talk to others to expose some lies that are being used by proponents of the government-run health care plan. We hope you find this information useful and share it with others.
There are two big fat lies going around. (UPDATE: a third lie added to the end of the post.)
One is a lie by omission.
One is a lie by distortion.
First, the lie by omission. Politicians claims that 46 million Americans are “uninsured”. What they imply is that these people want to be insured or qualify for insurance, or otherwise couldn’t get it if they wanted it.
Here’s the truth, the data the politicians leave out.
Of the 46 million:
- 10 million are ILLEGAL ALIENS (they are only “Americans” in the loosest sense, and to include them in these numbers is misleading).
- 8 million are young and won’t buy it b/c they are healthy and don’t want to pay for it or use it
- 10 million make more than 75,000 per year and STILL WONT BUY for whatever reason they have
- 9.4 million are between jobs and are classified as “temporarily” uninsured, but for the sake of putting the “rosiest” picture on the Big Government argument, we won’t deduct these people from the numbers.
See here for our citations for the above numbers.
So, that leaves 18 million people (or 9 million if you deduct temporaries), or 6% (3% if you deduct temporaries) of Americans – there are 300Million of us – who are “legitimately” not insured.
And you know what? Many of those 3-6% qualify for Medicaid.
So it’s likely less than 3-6% of Americans who legitimately don’t have access to health insurance coverage.
So, for less than 6% of Americans, we’re going to throw out the health care system that is the envy of the civilized world? A system that 93.6% of Americans reported being “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their physician services.
Someone just sent me this political cartoon from an Investors Business Daily Editorial that visually sums up what was expressed above. (this insertion is an update to the original post)
This is about a power grab and socialism pure and simple. The problems in our health care system are all ones that can be solved by introducing competition into the health care market.
And that leads into the second lie, the lie by distortion.
Proponents of socialized health care (and this is what the health care proposal IS, socialism), claim that “the free market has failed.”
The lie is that health care is a free market. That completely distorts the reality of the situation.
There are 133,000 pages of health care regulation in the U.S. Federal Register. If that were a book, it would be a book 44 feet thick! It would weigh 1330 lbs, more than a half a ton!
That’s the bureaucracy that health care providers wade through and the regulatory burden that providers and insurance companies have to deal with, and that raises costs significantly. And then there are the regulations on Insurance companies that restrict where and how they can sell insurance. Does that sound like a free market to you? One expert estimates that in it amounts to a $169 Billion annual tax. No wonder health care is expensive. You’ve seen doctors’ offices. They employ many people whose sole job is handle the reams of government paperwork they have to file, and some doctors are turning to new systems that allow them to see less patients, but have adverse consequences in other areas of health care. The remarkable thing is that it’s not more expensive!
How we got there is an interesting story all in itself. Medical Boards bear much blame for Nationalizing Health Care. The AMA helped to “Cartelize” medicine, reducing the supply of health care all while government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid increase it (all of which leads to longer wait times, reduction is services, etc.)
If you can believe it, about half of all US health care costs are already government funded, according to the OECD. (note that link resolves to OECD spreadsheet and is an excel file). When 3rd party taxpayers pick up the tab for much of health care, that’s not a free market.
So, we don’t have a true free market and people who make claims that “the free market has failed” are making false claims. The “market” that has “failed” (and if by failure you mean “provides the best health care in the world”) is one that has had to fight against massive government intrusion and inefficiency. Cost increases have been due to many factors, largely self-inflicted by the government and the industry itself. When you combine supply shortages at the same demand has been increasing due to government picking up the tab for services (when one is picking up the tab for one’s services, there is a tendency to save on costs, to shop, to look at differing options), you have a recipe for cost increases. (And then tack on skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs because of runaway jury awards that award not just actual damages, but also punitive ones . . .)
Imagine what a truly free health care market would be like! As good as our services are, they could be better, cheaper, and more timely.
Want to read about more lies and broken promises related to Health Care (or ObamaCare, as it’s increasingly being called)?
Here’s a great roundup of myths surrounding the US Health System.
The New York Post has a whole roundup of broken Health Care promises. This is perhaps the best article I’ve seen on the issue.
There’s a great blog run by a small business owner called The Coyote Blog: Dispatches from a Small Business that I’d encourage you to follow for great insights about how the proposed Health Plan will affect small businesses. Some recent highlights include:
- My Greatest Fear on the Health Care Bill
- More on the Health Care Bills
- Follow up on Preventive Care
- Perhaps the Most Egregious Statement of the Health Care Debate
Again, keep up the fight. Join the DownsizeDC.org campaign and it is, I believe, the easiest, most effective way for citizens to pressure their representatives on this issue.
UPDATE: We’re adding a third lie, since this one is getting a lot of play today. Supporters of government run health care are claiming that the a World Health Organization report says that the US has only the 37th best health care out of 121 countries. It’s a bogus report. The biggest variable in the report on “quality of health care” has nothing to do with quality of delivery or timeliness of delivery, it has to do with whether the government pays for it. It’s a worthless report. So, the most important factor used to measure the quality of health care treatments has to do with whether or not someone else picks up the tab? It’s nonsense.
The WHO report already been debunked and you can read the debunking it here.
Please subscribe to our RSS feed and our newsletter, and join our Facebook group.
*Note: Wording at the beginning of the article changed on Aug 21 from “It has been established that” to “We have argued that” on the suggestion of a reader.
July 24th, 2009 at 11:58 am
That is truly disturbing.
If possible, can you turn up the volume on this? There are way too many people sleeping in America today that really need to be woken up and hear this.
I’ll see what I can do to pump up the volume a bit.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Any claim in the modern world about how the “free market” has failed in some area or other is automatically false. The only free markets you’ll ever find anywhere are gray and black markets – and good luck finding one of those that isn’t similarly regulated or cartelized by a criminal (you know, the kind without a badge).
Anyway thanks for the post and links, I wasn’t aware of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, there are some great articles over there. The piece about health care history was particularly eye-opening; there always seems to be some forgotten story somewhere down the line of history that adequately explains disasters like this one.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Thanks for the update regarding the WHO report. Been looking for some information on that.
Another thing that politicians seem to be throwing around is that government health coverage will be limited, and thus won’t drive out private insurers. Unfortunately, in my experience, government programs like this never stay limited, since expanding these “free” benefits is Getting More Votes for Re-Election 101.
What’s your take?
July 24th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
@ (have another drink!)>٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶
First off, cool drawing in your handle. Secondly, we’re doing what we can, and we are counting on people like you to help get the word out. Our representatives need to hear from us. They need to know we support their opposition to the bill. Special interests and party-pressure are very strong, so they need to know that not only do we oppose this, we support them in their opposition. I don’t care if they’re republican or democrat, if they oppose this, they should know that we support their opposition.
@Justen Mises.org also publishes many of their books free in e-book form. The biggest disaster that will happen from today’s actions will likely be one our kids deal with (just as our generation is looking at the bankruptcy and insovency of Social Security long after those who started it fled the scene . . .). They have a daily email I’d encourage you to subscribe to. Best information we get each day in our inbox.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I do think this is an important matter, but near the very beginning of the article, you call the American health care system the envy of the rest of the world. Well, no offense, but I don’t know where you travel on your vacations. My family in Europe has far superior health care than I do, and I have one of the most expensive and “best” plans available in the USA. My elderly relatives never had to sell a home in order to afford their prescriptions or copays, and nobody was ever denied state-of-the-art treatment because they weren’t a celebrity or politician, like here in the US. I am confident that if my sister still lived in the US when she had cancer, she would now be dead.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Jeffrey.
Our take is consistent with yours. There’s no such thing as the “incredible shrinking government program.”
These types of programs are wonderful for pandering, but in the end hurt the very people they purport to help.
Our best advice for people is to
1. encourage them to live within their means and establish a savings (yes, it’s hard now, but the time to do it is during good times . . . so that when bad times come, like now, the temptation to jump on the bandwagon of every bogus-big-government-proposal-that-will-only-make-things-worse [see Bailout and Simulus plans for recent examples] is mitigated and you can keep your head while everyone else is losing theirs hoping that government can sprinkle the pixy dust and somehow make iron-clad economic law disappear.)
2. do your best to save for retirement b/c social security will either (a) be bankrupt (b) raise the retirement age high enough that people will die before they claim it (c) cut benefits to well below the poverty line (and many elderly people on SS live below the poverty line now).
3. understand that medicaid and medicare are headed that way, too, so do the best you can to keep yourself healthy and keep your body in good shape (preventive care and clean living) and then try to reform health care in ways that stimulates supply and competition (which lowers the cost of health care).
This health care bill not only speeds of the destructive day of reckoning, reducing the time we have to change our expectations and behaviors, it actually makes the day of reckoning worse . . .
But, still, the economy WILL get better. It’s only a matter of time. Free people’s, despite Big Governments best attempts to make a bad situation (caused by them) worse, find a way through and prosper anew.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
David,
I’d say your sister’s experience is not consistent with the experiences of many others. Our cancer treatments and survival rate are the best in the world.
See this:
These European Countries also also have a demographic time-bomb on their hands (just like Japan) because the long-term consequences their high-tax policies have created where families cannot afford to have more than one or two children. The burden of supporting the existing generations is so high to the present working class that it’s just not feasible. As the number of recipients far outstrips the payers and providers, the full disaster of these policies is being made known.
Give it a few more years, and demographic winter will be in full bloom: http://www.demographicwinter.com/index.html.
You can see what’s happening in the UK now. The NHS is a joke, health care is being rationed, and people wish they had the old system back (but it’s very tough to undo it).
Best,
SBABG.org
July 24th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
The single best place to start with health care “reform” would be with meaningful tort reform. The silence from our elected officials and the Obama administration with respect to this is deafening.
July 24th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Amen to that. We have such a skew on true medical cost from the cost of insurance against malpractice suites. Tort reform followed by allowing anyone anywhere in the country to purchase insurance from any provider in the country. Open up competition, reduce front end cost FIRST, and wait and see where costs for consumers go. (That would be Down)
August 4th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Well…Obama said tort reform doesn’t work. And nobody challenges him on it, because he said it and it must be true.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Maybe we should yell a little louder about Tort reform. Although I have not confirmed this, I’ve heard numerous independent sources (including one of my current doctors) that the very basic tort reform we passed in Texas has been successful so far.
http://docisinblog.com/index.php/2009/07/27/texas-tort-reform/
July 24th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Jon,
Excellent point. One reason health care is expensive is because malpractice insurance is expensive and the cost of it gets passed onto the patient (necessarily).
The cause of high malpractice insurance costs is jury awards that are made not for damages, but punitively. The Trial Lawyers Association Lobby is very powerful and doesn’t want to see any relief on this issue.
Our Primary Care family doctor quit his practices several years ago because he could not make a profit or pay himself after paying for his malpractice premium. this was a GP doctor, not a surgeon, low risk, and had never had a malpractice claim against him.
There’s a huge Primary Care shortage materializing in the US, and this Health Care plan is set to blow the crisis into overdrive (a demand spike while supply is dwindling). Since the cost of care and procedures will be capped, the care will not be allocated by price, but by rationing, and that means the government will tell you when you will see the doctor and what care is available (hope we all like waiting in lines!)
To understand just how dire the Primary Care situation is, read the below.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-paygap_06bus.ART.State.Edition1.3cf46f4.html
July 24th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Worth noting – a number of politicians are Lawyers, trial or otherwise. Conflict of interest anyone?
July 24th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
One of the biggest benefits that Obama is counting on with his health care plan is that, since you cannot sue the government, he thinks he will be able to reduce the cost of government run health care by the cost of law suits! In other words, by not allowing tort reform, the government run health care program will be able to save the cost of liability law suits which will reduce the cost of Obama health care.
The main problem with this plan is that (1) liability lawsuits will be shifted to the doctors personally which will make them even harder for doctors to pay, (2) judgments will be after tax rather than before tax which will significantly increase the liability to the doctors and the insurance companies, and (3) the increase in cost for the Obama health care plan will far exceed the savings anticipated from the lawsuit savings!
Once again, the Obama Administration has a difficult time in projecting the second stage of their proposals. In this case, the losers will be the doctor’s, the lawyers and the American people. I can understand where the doctor’s and the American people are coming from, but for the life of me, I cannot understand what the lawyers are thinking on this! They will lose big-time!!
July 25th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Richard,
Excellent points. This stage one thinking – assuming that after all the incentive systems have changed that no ones behavior will change – is very harmful.
I think that – in the absence of a concrete bill – many of the special interests are having a hard time figuring out if they’re going to profit at the expense of others or if others are going to profit at their expense.
As the specifics of the bills come closer, we should expect much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
Isn’t it remarkable how few people in government understand basic economics, value creation, the capital structure of production, and incentive systems? And the economists they do consult on fiscal issues are Keynesians? Blech. The Keynesians are popular because their policy recommendations always amount to, “government needs more power and needs to control more of the economy.” Keynesian economists and egomaniacal pols were made for each other!
July 24th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Excellent points. I like the 133,000 pages of health regulations. If that doesn’t prove what a mess the government has made of health care I don’t know what does. That’s just the federal regulations. I wonder how many pages of individual state regulations there are?
We have a libertarian website where we’ve been getting hammered by people the last few days claiming health care is a right. It’s impossible to reason with them because they don’t seem to have a clue what our rights really are.
July 25th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Mike,
Leaving aside a discussion of liberty rights vs. claim rights, and positive rights vs. negative rights, which could help these people understand where they’re mistaken, the bottom line is that they way they conceive of a right is as an entitlement.
It always helps to point out that in their conception of a right is embedded a conception of duty or responsibility. If health care is a right (entitlement), then some one else is obligated (responsible) to provide it. But if it’s the case that everyone has this “right” then everyone has a claim on everyone else, in equal degrees, to provide it. Which means that those who claim the right without providing it are in violation of the right, since they aren’t fulfilling the responsibility to meet everyone else’s right.
The bottom line is that they’re just muddled thinkers who don’t understand what a right is, how value is created in the world, how goods and services get delivered, and they just want something for nothings. Goods just “magically appear” in the world and the only reason they don’t have it is because you do.
Health care is a good that is wonderful, and in a free market the supply of that good will meet the demand, and competition will not only spur innovation, but will also bring the cost of such down . . .
But health care as a right? Then I demand they provide me with it . . .
At bottom isn’t it just about envy and wanting something for nothing?
July 25th, 2009 at 7:29 am
@D Davis:
We did make some of the arguments you stated but it seems to go over their heads or ignored. One commenter even tried to get into the positive rights vs. negative rights issue. It’s interesting how a lot of people are conditioned to think that the world owes them something.
July 25th, 2009 at 10:22 am
@Mike Walsh
Well, you can lead a horse to water . . .
There certainly is an entitlement mentality amongst many people, and it’s based in how they “feel” about the world, and no amount of logic, reason, proof, etc will dissuade them from their feeling that the world (i.e. other people) owe them something that they, in turn, don’t owe others.
“We’re all created equal, it’s just that some of us are more equal than others.”
I’d be interested in any studies that have looked at the “entitlement mindset” (production/consumption ratio) of people who make up the groups that engage in mob violence. My guess is that they’re almost entirely made up of these kinds of people.
July 25th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
here’s one of the threads on our blog: http://politicalclassdismissed.com/?p=7704&cpage=1#comment-265714
July 25th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
the commenter “Clint” is just like the same arguments on other posts….
July 25th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
I replied to Clint thus. It won’t change his mind – he’s not open to logic – but there it is . . .
—
First off, the 46 million uninsured number is a red herring. Most of those people are people who have chosen not to be insured or are part of a rolling number of temporary uninsureds who are leaving one job, starting another, and their insurance hasn’t kicked in yet (for example, our company has a 30-90 day wait period on our plan) That number is constant each month but is composed of different, temporary people, so it’s really irrelevant.
The “true” uninsured are probably less than 10M, or 3% of Americans.
see http://www.sbabg.org/2009/07/24/thetwo-biggest-fattest-lies-in-the-health-care-reform-debate/
Secondly, there is no such thing as “society” and people here advocating for socialized health care should stop using this word . . . there is no “society”, there are only individuals.
When you say, “society should provide health care” that is just nonsense.
There is no such entity as “society.”
What you should say is what you mean, and what the truth of what you are saying is . . . “you should provide me with free health care.”
What right can you identify that I should provide you with free health care? If we are equal, and we have equal rights, you should be providing me with free health care, too, correct, since we both have a right to claim it from each other.
But if you should provide me with it (you have the obligation to be my servant), and I should provide you with it (I am obligated to be your servant), then, really, it’s a wash and as soon as you stop providing for my health care, you’re in violation of my right and the contract is broken (should I prosecute you?). So anyone asking for health care without being a provider for health care is just a free loader.
It’s been belabored here, but no one has the right to steal from another person to pay for a 3rd party’s health care. Your conscience or morals might “compel” you to help those in need of health care (and I hope that we all feel the need to help those is need), but you do not have the right to force doctors to work without pay, to take the products of the work and labors of others and give it to others.
Health care is not a “right”. It’s a “service” or “good” just like any other service or good in the economy. And services and goods don’t grow on trees. They are all fulfilled by someone who has paid a price and sacrificed to develop the skills to deliver that good or service.
Who gets to be compelled at the point of a gun to hand out all that free health care to all those non-payers?
Those who want free health care can have it – they just need to study hard, go to medical school, and treat themselves – then they can have all the free care they want, and they don’t need to steal from others to get it.
July 25th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
“I replied to Clint thus. It won’t change his mind – he’s not open to logic – but there it is . . .”
Thanks for joining the conversation… “Clint” is just one of many who fail to respond to logic… they either drop out of the conversation or start hurling insults and claim we’re “social darwinists”
July 25th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Yep, as if it’s totally impossible to conceive of a society that cares for the poor, sick, and needy without violent coercion . . . See, violence and coercion are always to be sanctioned provided that one intends to “do good” with the spoils.
Those who govern are made out of the same stuff as those who don’t, that is an admixture of good and bad . . . but absolute power tends to amplify the bad, whereas limited (i.e. checked) power in a free society allows to the good to be amplified. When I don’t have be as concerned about defending my property from pillagers, it’s much easier to be aware of the plight of those in need and meet those needs. And the more of my property I keep (instead of siphoning 40% of it into the hands of the bureaucrats that eat 85% of ), the more I have to share with others (either through charity, investment in businesses that create jobs for workers and goods for consumers that improve their lives).
It just so happens that free societies work. America was at its greatest when it was its freest, and the voluntary charity system worked far, far better than the coercive welfare system ever has. I have lived for several years in the third world, where property rights are not recognized and where the ruling class steals everything. Relative to those places, we are a paradise. In America, our “poverty” is their “comfortable upper class.” As Thomas Sowell said (I’m paraphrasing), “America isn’t a society of Haves and Have-nots. It is a society of Haves and Have-mores.” But those who are envious, and peddle the politics of victimhood through grievance mongering would rather have a society of Have-nots and Have-nots than one that has “unjust distribution”; equality of outcome is the goal, regardless of the *quality* of the outcome.
July 27th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I especially appreciate the clarifying comments regarding our healthcare system NOT being a free-market system. Like most major industries in this country, healthcare is burdened by heavy regulations that increase costs and slow things down (and worse!). Gov’t needs to GET OUT of business, period!
July 28th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I thought this was small businesses against big government, not one-sided uneducated propaganda about the health care issue? It may be semi-flawed proposal as far as numbers are concerned, but in the long run, it is designed to HELP people, so please stop listening to the commercials on TV and do some actual research before you send these letters! If you dont support Healthcare, than you dont support small businesses. BOTTOM LINE! If you really want to help, then try to fix health care… because some people need help! Its a sad day when america turns its back on its own people, without even trying! If you send anymore letters like this, not only will I leave the group, but I will use my 10,000 plus network of people, to discredit this group publicly. If this is your main goal in this group then it is misleading and flat out wrong!
July 28th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Dear Daniel,
Government-run health care is as “Big Government” as Big Government gets. Not only that, but the cost of the program – as documented by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (on three occasions now) – has been proven, indisputably, to add massively to the national debt and deficit and create even more unfunded programs in addition to the others that are bankrupting America.
The plan punishes small businesses and that’s been well documented. It punishes all small businesses (with an 8% fee for the larger ones) that don’t currently provide benefits to all their employees, and it currently carries a 5.4% Surtax on “the rich” which – because of the filing status of most small businesses – includes small business owners, too. Oh, and it takes away choice and leads to rationing of services.
You are certainly free to provide any argument you’d like to back up your claim that any of what we’ve said is “one-sided uneducated propaganda about the health care issue.” Feel free to expose the “propaganda” of all of the mainstream media sources we’ve cited to back up the claims, too.
You can also explain how the plan is “semi-flawed” (as you say it is) and how it is not “semi-flawed” instead of just making the claim.
The Soviet Union was also “designed to HELP people,” but we’re not talking about “intentions” we’re talking about “actual policy” and how it affects people. And the actual policy of the current Congress and Administration both makes the economy weaker, adds to the national debt and deficits, and robs people of their liberties.
You ask that we “do some actual research before you send these letters!” We’ve documented all claims we’ve made, unlike yourself, so please, if you desire, provide counter-evidence to support your claims.
You say, “If you dont support Healthcare, than you dont support small businesses.”
We’re not sure where you draw that conclusion from, or what that even means. We support “health care.” We don’t support government run health care. But we think health care is good. I guess we have to say that, for the record, since people like yourself somehow get the impression that if you oppose government nationalizing health care and determining what kind and level of care you are eligible to get that means you don’t support health care.
You say, “If you send anymore letters like this, not only will I leave the group, but I will use my 10,000 plus network of people, to discredit this group publicly. If this is your main goal in this group then it is misleading and flat out wrong!”
Our “main goal” in this group is to oppose Big Government, by way of small business owners and employees. We are small business owners and employees helping other small business owners and employees understand how the kleptocrats in Washington are plotting to take their money and their freedoms.
Frankly, we are not quite sure what interest you’d have even had in joining this group since your views are probably not going to be consistent with those people who are “Against Big Government.” Assuredly, there will be more emails about this from us, so you may want to spare yourself the apoplexy and unsubscribe. If you’d like to use your network of 10,000 to publicly “discredit” the group, by all means, do so.
But instead of doing that, how about sending them here to present their views as to why this “semi-flawed” (your words) program is GOOD for small business, good for personal freedoms, etc? Debate, with facts, is healthy for a democratic republic. We welcome factual debate.
The problem with Health Care is that costs are rising. The answer is not to put “caps on pricing” (which only leads to rationing), but to increase supply. Instead, the plan punishes doctors and assuredly will lead to less of them (which will then lead to more rationing). Tort reform would help, too.
The problems with Health Insurance are mostly tied to health care costs and regulation that prevents competition, and there are other structural problems that lead to people losing coverage (lack of portability) or not getting it in the first place (price). There are ways to make the Health Insurance market more competitive, which in turn makes it more affordable. Oh yeah, and for everyone who buys health insurance, not just companies, make it tax deductible. Want to help people purchase health insurance? Stop taking their money in taxes. Let them take that money and buy insurance with it. And let small businesses and individuals pool their risks with other individuals and small businesses.
Jim Demint and Paul Ryan have both introduced bills that do this. They’re not perfect, but they’re not outright socialism. I know you heard the Propagandist in Chief saying, “The ‘other side’ thinks we should just do nothing.” But that’s where you need to turn off the TV. We are not aligned with any party. We align with any person who is fighting for the principle of limited government and making markets more free and competitive.
The Ryan and Demint plans are linked below. We don’t endorse either of these plans, though we fully support the measures in them that introduce more competition into health care; competition always drives down price and increases selection and options. We list them merely point out that there are others who are advocating “doing something” without soaking small businesses and taking over 1/6th of the US economy.
Demint:
http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=0db98529-0230-3564-0e4b-fe84bdb1971b
Ryan:
http://www.house.gov/ryan/issuepapers/healthcareissuepaper.html
We’d like to see a free market in health care. That would be good for small business. Anything else just grows “Big Government.”
We invite you to stick around and keep learning about these issues.
Best regards,
SBABG.org
July 31st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
You tell Daniel to stick around to learn something.
The problem is that if I wrote a paper for my company that did not include sources and references, as you do, I’d be fired.
Your breakdown of how many of the uninsured don’t want it, are illegals, etc does just this. Every breakdown I have ever seem does this.
Personally, I don’t see a big difference between the govt option and the private one. The main difference is WHO will turn down your claim, not If it will be turned down.
Once again, those of us who can think and are not that easily led want to see facts, not fabricated numbers. That’s all your breakdown is until I and others like me see the polling and census data.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Hi Melissa,
Most of the statistics come from the US Census Bureau: Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005
http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p60-231.pdf
From the report:
Uninsured *people* living in the US 46.577 million.
Census data includes (you can verify all these numbers at the link to the report provided) 9.5 million people who are “not a citizen.” Subtract the 10 million people who aren’t Americans and the number of uninsured Americans drops to approximately 37 million.
Also, according to the same Census report, 8.3 million uninsured people make $50,000 to $74,999 per year. And there are 8.74 million more uninsured who make more than $75,000 a year. That’s about 17 million people who can “afford” health insurance (and if they don’t want health insurance can at least afford health care our of pocket) because they make a lot more than the U.S. median household income of $46,326.
So, now, subtracting non-citizens and those who can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it, about 20 million people are left – less than 7 percent of the population.
Now, according to the Congressional Budget Office (link to report below) 45 percent of these uninsured will be insured within four months because they are transitioning between jobs and most people get health insurance through their employers (employers have wait periods, enrollment periods, etc).
See the stats from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report at its website:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4210/05-12-Uninsured.pdf
The CBO, in another report, also said that 7.9 million of the uninsured are under 24 years old; that’s the healthiest group of americans and the people least like to need and use health care. Here’s that report: http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf
So, true uninsured?
The Kaiser Family Foundation puts the number at between 13.9 million and 8.2 million.
http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/7451_04_Data_Tables.pdf
Oh, and Kaiser and various other news sources have reports on children who qualify for coverage but whose parents haven’t signed them up (this is primary kids who qualify for Medicaid). See reports at:
http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7451.cfm
Here’s a news story that references the kids coverage: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2009/06/trying_to_cover_the_unenthusia.html
We didn’t cite these in the original post because the numbers we quoted are well-documented elsewhere, but they have remained largely unseen by the public because the liberal media and dishonest politicians who know the facts are happy to keep you in the dark because they are fabricating a crisis and the fake number serves their interests. But what else do you expect from Big Government and their enablers?
We’ll add a link to this citations comment to the original post for other skeptics who find their way here . . .
Best,
SBABG.org
August 17th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
As an uninsured, self-employed, thirty-something American I can relate very closely to this subject. Medical insurance for just me (not including my family) is about $600 per month. This is almost a fifth of my take home pay and is simply unsustainable. Should I let my home go into foreclosure to pay for this privilege? Should I let my health suffer in the event of an illness (thereby making it so I produce no income)? I do agree that something has to be done to correct this.
I think your 3% estimate may be a little “rose colored” since many people will fall into more than one category that you are deducting. Since these numbers also don’t come from the same sampling base, they are also not directly related. Think back to college Statistics – we learned that you can make a statistic say whatever you want. If I poll people in a dog park if they own cats, then poll animal control agencies to deduct the number of euthanized cats – I can say there is a declining cat population. Is there? Probably not.
I agree that the Obama plan is poorly conceived and will open the door to much bigger problems in the future, but at least he is making a lot of noise on the subject which is raising awareness. There are no easy answers, but I am happy to see some educated discussion on the subject.
September 13th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I believe that John made a valid point in the previous post. The 3% number may be a bit rose-colored. We can be certain that the number of people who want medical insurance but cannot afford it is much lower than the “47 million uninsured.” Certainly President Obama has “raised awareness!”
I will not make many people happy with this, but I believe that tort reform is a red herring in this discussion. Malpractice insurance costs simply cannot account for the outrageous growth in medical costs. Why does it cost $150 to see a doctor (this does not include any labs or radiology)? If malpractice insurance is 10% of a doctor’s overhead we are still looking at $135 to see the doctor for 15 minutes. How is this justified?
I believe that the answer is quite simply that this is what medical insurance companies and the Federal government are willing to pay.
A Progressive friend of mine says that his doctor is always complaining about how much time and effort goes into dealing with the multitude of insurance companies. I believe that this is also a red herring. It brings to mind nearly sweatshop conditions as scores of people labor over large stacks of paper trying to get them to the right place. I do know that much if not most of the filing is completed automatically by computer.
I don’t know exactly what the solution to this problem is. We must find some way to reintroduce free market principles into health care.