and of course the U.S. Census Bureau isn't influenced in any way by politicians & gov't bureaucrats interested in expanding the gov't sphere of influence.....
So before you completely discount the link, I'll break it down for you. The Census Bereau estimate of "uninsured" is 45.7M. What the Blue Cross, Blue Shield asserts is the following:
Of the 45.7M
- 14M would qualify for Medicaid/SCHIP or another gov't program to provide coverage.
- 13M make over $ 50K or more and have access to coverage and chose not to pay for it.
- 5.7M are short-term uninsured, or people who are between jobs, college grad, etc.
Total = 32.7M
The 8.2M number isn't in the link, and I'll have to look for where I found it again, but the 8.2M number includes an estimate of about 4.8M for illegal immigrants who were counted as "uninsured" by Census. Either way the 45.7M is grossly over-estimated. Using 8.2M as the real number of uninsured we have accounted for 82% of the 45.7M that you want covered....and we haven't passed any legislation or spent a dime.
Now back to my voucher point, why can't we use some sort of voucher for these 8.2M to buy private insurance, pass legislation limiting awards to malpractice lawsuits and see how things go, without a masive gov't intervention into health care.