A Little Affordable Care Perspective

*******UPDATE*****
On FoxNews Sunday, Dr. Ezekial Emanuel just used the 50 million number, which is false on it's face.

I guess I'm feeling ambitious.  I don't know why, lol.  It's 72 here in the Shenandoah Valley and I am on the deck getting some Vitamin D.

But as I sit here I read and have to listen to people talk about how heartless Republicans are.  We fought ObamaCare.  We want it to fail.  Not cause it's a boondoggle mind you....no, because we never cared about the uninsured.  Didn't we understand that 50 million people in America were uninsured in 2008?  More than 16% of the population!  Read the census!

Well, did you?  Did you go read the 2008 census they are/were citing?  Cause I did.  And a few others did.  They tried to tell you.  I told everyone who would listen, including my sons who stopped listening, lol!  "Yeah, yeah Ma.  We know.  They are playing with the numbers.  Can I get back to what I was doing?"

But it was more than a headline.  It was more than a soundbite.  People didn't have the time or inclination to fact check.  So they were fooled by the whole "50 million Americans have no healthcare!"  Never mind healthcare is not health insurance.  Word games, numbers games, whatever.

From the 2008 census the number of uninsured in America - Page 20, Table 7.  "People Without Health Insurance Coverage by Selected Characteristics: 2007 and 2008"

Number of uninsured in 2008; 46,340,000.  Not 50,000,000.  OK, so they rounded up a little.

Number of uninsured people whose household income was over $75,000 per year; 9,725,000.  Did they need saving?  No, more likely they decided they could pay out of pocket and  not bother with insurance.

Number of uninsured people whose household income was over $50,000 per year; 8,034,000.  Some might have struggled in that bracket depending on their location, but most?  No, I don't think so.  Again, I believe the majority made a conscious choice to abstain.

Number of uninsured people with a household income under $25,000 per year; 13,673,000.  Now again, this number represents something that is not being discussed.  It includes a great deal of people who qualify for insurance /Medicaid /Medicare /VA coverage and they are not obtaining it.  Why?  Well some just aren't aware.  Some don't understand the process.  Some don't want to be "in the system" whether out of fear or stubbornness.  And in all categories, again, there are those who just don't want to opt in.  I want outreach to help those who qualify get through the process and get coverage through existing avenues.  Don't tell me that there wasn't an easier lest costly way to help this demographic.

Number of non-citizens who do not report health insurance?  9,511,000.  Ok, now there are many differing views on what this number represents and how much we should care.  This number does not represent a solid block of malnourished, abused, illegal immigrants living in abject poverty.  And while you may disagree, I do not think we should be turning 1/6 of our economy to make sure they have insurance.

After I make what I consider to be reasonable adjustments, who is left of those 46,340,000?

Well, I don't want to count anyone making than $75,000 or more per year.  If there is an extenuating circumstance, chances are there is a corresponding charity.  If not, it must be possible to fix that on a small scale.

So we're down to 36,615,000.

Next category is those making between $50,000 and $74,999.  Conceding geographic location, I'll give you half.  How's that?

Down to 32,598,000.

What's left is people with incomes under $25K.  I'll give you a third of them - 4,557,667.  Again, I think that's more than generous.  So I'm subtracting two thirds, 9,115,333 people.

Non-citizens?  I don't want to count any of them.  My Federal tax dollars should not be taking care of you.  Go home to your own country for care.  Or pay the bill.  Taking them completely out would cut the number drastically , but there is no telling where they fell in the income breakdown.  So I can't take any off.  But you know darn well some of them are represented in the numbers for households making over $25,000 and less than $49,999.  And I'm leaving that group whole.

Now our number is 23,482,667.  I won't quibble about people who chose not to be insured, as is their right.  But where does this leave us?  Less than half of what the Affordable Care Act's proponents cried about.

23,482,667 people represent not quite 8% of the 301,483,000 counted..

Now let's watch and see how many people who were responsible and had a policy in 2008 will lose what they had.  And I don't mean just the people getting letters that their individual policies are cancelled.  You know the ones who per this link on Forbes -

"On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney attempted to minimize the disruption issue, arguing that it only affected people who buy insurance on their own. “That’s the universe we’re talking about, 5 percent of the population,” said Carney."

So Jay Carney doesn't think *those* 5% are any big deal.  You know, it's not like it was 8% or anything.

However, in addition to the people who had individual policies and will lose them.....let's add people whose employers lost or dropped coverage.  And what about people who lost access to their employee insurance coverage when employers cut their hours?

So at the end of the day, you will have disrupted far more than 8% of the population.  You will have moved them out of policies that were adequate.  You will have forced people who simply paid their own way into purchasing insurance they didn't want.  Because the ACA also forces insurance companies to drop bare bones policies to offer policies with bells and whistles that some Americans neither needed nor wanted.  You will have people moving from adequate plans to plans with higher deductibles and out of pocket costs.

In the big picture you will have a net loss of coverage.