Speaking of That 50 Million Uninsured

LETTER TO THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Sir: In your “Analysis” (August 22) you continue to characterize the number of health care uninsured in the U.S. as “50 million.” This is a figure used by those trying to stampede Congress and Americans into radically changing our health care system based on vague promises of cost reductions, much of which will come from reduced care to the elderly. The figure is highly misleading and confuses the issue, making it much harder to focus on practical solutions to problems that do in fact exist.

First of all, this statistic applies to a given day, not a period of time like a year. Far fewer are uninsured for long periods of time. Second, over 10 million are non-citizens. Voters should be able to decide how much they want to spend to support health care for those illegally in the country. Third, 8 million of that 50 million are insured under Medicare; they simply have never signed up. It is deceitful to characterize them as “uninsured”. An additional 4 million or more “uninsured” children are insured under SCHIP. Again, someone simply needs to sign them up. It is misleading to characterize them as uninsured just because on a survey they claimed not to be insured. Then there are 5 to 10 million who choose not to pay for insurance (young, incomes over 300% of the poverty line).

Making first-dollar medical care insurance free to all will only insure that we spend more, not less, since none of the truly distortive aspects of the system will be repaired. And, no surprise, most of the problems are a result of government (federal and state level) regulatory distortions of the market, designed to help assure re-election and probably well-meaning. But good intentions codified in law in ignorance of the complexity and the facts on the ground only insures larger problems in the future. As a simple start, President Obama needs to begin by explaining how this “50 million insured” can suddenly become insured and given “quality healthcare” while our total health care bill for the nation is reduced. It doesn’t add up for ordinary folk and I suspect Congress has no idea how to do this as well. That’s the source of concern.