There have been many numbers and statistics that have been used in the debate over health care reform. They are used individually to bolster view points or elicit emotional responses.
It doesn't seem anyone has put them all together to see what they add up to. When you do so I believe it leads to one inescapable conclusion.
Here are some of the stats: (All used by health care reform supporters)
*If excluding illegal immigrants, there are roughly 20-24 million uninsured Americans.
*It is estimated that 3-5 million of these are younger, healthy people that can afford health insurance but have opted against it. (Part of the plan is simply to mandate that they purchase insurance)
*The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bills currently being considered in the House and Senate would each result in approximately 95% of Americans being covered.
*The Congressional Budget Office puts the cost at either to be just under or over $1,000,000,000,000. That cost, by the way, is for the first several years. Experience with governmental programs practically guarantees that costs will rise dramatically with time.
*Each COMPLETELY reforms the current health care system and includes a "government option" that many experts believe would eventually lead to government run, single-payer health care. The proverbial "throwing out the baby with the bath water".
*There are approximately 300 million citizens. 5% of 300 million is 15 million. That's the amount that would remain uncovered.
So we are talking about a complete reformation of the largest industry in our nation's economy, with huge (and likely underestimated) costs, and negligible increases in the number of citizens being covered.
How can anyone believe this is anything less than an attempt by the government to control, not improve, health care?
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