47 Million Uninsured

There has been a lot of talk lately about all these uninsured Americans when it comes to Health Insurance. I watched an interesting episode of Huckabee last night in which Mike Huckabee suggests that number is actually quite different. You see, you have to take away the number of people in that figure that are illegal immigrants (10 to 12 million), those who make more than $50,000 a year and choose not to pay for health insurance (17 million), those currently qualify for government programs but do not enroll, and those who are merely in transition and will likely have health insurance again within the next 4 months.

Huckabee's numbers come down to about 5 million who want health insurance but can't afford it. I've seen other estimates from 8.2 million to 13.9 million and there's an interesting article on all this at http://businessandmedia.org/articles/2007/20070718153509.aspx.

So do we really need universal health care to reach those who want it but can't afford it? The numbers suggest there could be much cheaper and easier ways to simply fix the problems we have and extend coverage to those people.

Being in the under $50,000 a year class, but with health insurance, I submit to everyone that a little education could go along way for those who want it but don't feel they could afford it. It may not be as expensive as they think.

Either way, our current track for reform is not the way to go. Huckabee also suggests the problem is more an issue with the state of health in America rather than just the health insurance industry. Check out his take on this issue at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPS0GE6ZsBw.

Let's stop playing with the numbers and get on the right track. I'm tired of the lies and truth-stretching.