Checking the ObamaCare Math
The health care debate has largely been a battle of numbers, and the most widely cited one — 46 million uninsured — isn’t even accurate.
According to the census, the real number of uninsured Americans is 28 million: 46 million, minus nine million non-citizens, minus nine million people on Medicaid who were falsely tallied as uninsured.
But that hasn’t kept the Congressional Budget Office from using a figure of 50 million uninsured. By all accounts, the CBO is getting its number from the census while failing to adjust for the census’ admitted Medicaid undercount (while apparently adding four million because of the recession). By inflating the number of uninsured by about 20 percent, the CBO is significantly overstating the magnitude of the problem and is aiding the Democrats in their push to dramatically increase government’s power and control over our health care system.
But these are by no means the only interesting numbers in the health care debate. Here are some others:
17: The percentage of the United States gross domestic product (GDP) that’s currently being spent on health care, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
21: The percentage of U.S. GDP that would be spent on health care in 2019 under the House health bill, according to CMS.
3.4: The percentage increase in U.S. health care spending in 2019 under the House health bill’s coverage provisions (in relation to projections under current law), according to CMS.
60 billion: The number of American tax dollars that Medicare loses each year to fraud, according to 60 Minutes and the Washington Post.
8.3 billion: The combined profits last year, in dollars, of America’s ten largest private health insurance companies, according to Fortune 500.
830 billion: The combined profits, in dollars, that America’s ten largest private health insurance companies would make — at the rate of last year’s profits — over 100 years, according to Fortune 500.
1.009 trillion: The costs, in dollars, of the Senate Finance Committee health bill in the seven-year span from 2014 to 2020, according to the CBO.
90: The percentage of Americans who already have health insurance, according to the census.
95: The percentage of Americans who either have health insurance or make more money than most Americans, according to the census.
A lot of these numbers are approximations and unreliable estimates.
What matters is legislation that:
Provides decent health coverage for the entire US population.
Provides coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions.
Eliminates Medicare drugs ‘donut hole’.
Reduces cost of medications.
Eliminates insurance fraud.
Reduces doctors insurance premiums.
Insurance portability.
Insurance companies operating across State lines.
And more.
One or two last numbers to add to the list..
0: as the number of politicians that will be reelected if they support ObamaCare.
0: as the number of politicians that will be reelected if they support anything Obama comes up with.
Well done. This is the first time I’ve seen these numbers pulled together in a cohesive manner. They tally with what I’ve seen in other places and other sources. Thanks for doing this.
#1. Vivo, the coverage of preexisting conditions has been tried already in Maine. The result is that people don’t carry insurance until they get sick and then after they are cured, the insurance is dropped. Also, ‘eliminates insurance fraud’ is a pipe dream.
Add to the above:
0-the number of politicians who want to be covered by this plan. Now why would that be?
Details, details; The numbers don’t mean anything; It’s the “intent” that counts. Intentions matter. That’s why the economy is going to hell. It’s Obama’s master plan.
9: The percent drug costs have risen since the reform debate began. http://www.newsy.com/videos/drugmakers_raise_prices_ahead_of_health_care_reform
Congressman John Fleming ( Louisiana physician) has proposed an
amendment that would require congressmen and senators to take the same healthcare plan they force on us (under proposed legislation they are curiously exempt).
http://fleming.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=55§iontree=29,55
If the healthcare plan is forced on the American people, then the people who passed it should have to accept the same level of health care for themselves and their families. To do otherwise is the height of hypocrisy!
the type of proposed health care oBAMA WANTS HAS NOT WORKED IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY and a state run health care program is the cornerstone of a socialist program. The insurance companies are not the culprits in this.
Americans seem to think they have a right to free everything…and never stop to think who has had to pay for the “free”.. there is a lot of fraud in medicare/cade clean them up first. they need a check and balance, not general insurance. There are so many free loaders in America that do not want to hear that they have to work for something.
As small business owners, it appears we will face some tough decisions if this goes through. When the small businesses close there will be no one to pay for the free stuff…
The biggest problem thus far is , we are not sure what is in the bill, and the people voting on it know even less.
Totally disgusting for a country that has prided itself on being a Republic.
♪ mmm mmm mmm ♪ Welcome to Obamacare ♪ mmm mmm mmm ♪ Present!!! ♪ mmm mmm mmm ♪ Michelle has her own plan and it’s better than yours. ♪ mmm mmm mmm ♪ The congress has its own plan and you can’t have it! ♪ mmm mmm mmm ♪ Good luck! ♪ mmm mmm mmm ♪
Vivo:
1. None of the things on your list matter to me. (I’ll take freedom, thanks)
2. The House bill will accomplish none of the things on your list.
I have some to not pay any attention to any figures that are stated by this administration as they all seem to come out of the atmosphere and selected at random and are less accurate than a ten day weather forecast.
I have also come to the conclusion that any figures are stated just to sound good to some but not me. It is all bull and most know it. We are not coming out of a recession but going deeper into one.
Some of the recent activity that looks good it merely people taking profits now while they still have some sort of value and the uncertainty of what could happen in both the near and distant future from decisions of this administration.
TANSTAAFL!
or
There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
As it is today, you owe almost $39,000.00 to pay for things that our parents wanted “free”. When are we going to wake up and understand that kiting checks for our great, grandchildren to pay for isn’t right. It’s a guarantee that America will fail. If socialism is such a wonderful thing…where is the German Democratic Republic? Where is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Why has China turned away from socialism and adopted a free market economy? Really now, there must be an answer.
Great list. Would you happen to have the other giant numbers that add to that incredible number of $2.4 trillion dollar/year for health care costs?
How about:
Cost of litigation, frivilous and otherwise.
Cost of malpractice insurance, nationally.
Projected cost and number of federal employees to manage the program ad infinitum.
Cost of pork and kickbacks to senators and congress to vote for the bill, which are not directly related to health care.
What is the estimate return on investment of this $ trillion in U.S. productivity and business stimulation? How is it estimated to effect GDP or the ratio of debt to GDP? Is it inflationary?
1. vivo, if we pass such a bill, and it bankrupts us, what good is it? For when we are bankrupt, all those benefits you list will disappear, assuming they even arrive in the first place.
Vivo, if the government really can eliminate insurance fraud, why don’t they prove it by first getting rid of Medicare fraud? They’re already in direct control of Medicare, it should be easy for them to prove that their plans can reduce fraud.
The answer, of course, is that they can’t prove it because their plans don’t do a durned thing to address fraud. All they address is giving the government more power.
@1
What matters is legislation that:
Provides decent health coverage for the entire US population.
————————–
First on your list. So you concede that the Democrats’ plans are destined to be abject failures, I take it?
Please,,, asking the government to reduce fraud,, is that some kind of joke?
We will end up with just another huge bureaucracy that will be over run with MASSIVE fraud and abuse.
Government IS the problem, not the solution.
I understand that I wrote a ‘wish list’. Why legislators can’t do something right is beyond me.
Avoiding fraud may be difficult, but someone has to incorporate its avoidance when designing rules and requirements plus audits. What’s the Accounting/Auditing profession for?
Well, once again, if you want REAL facts and the straight skinny, you gotta turn to FOX . . .
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200911190006
Now there’s some numbers for ya.
Vivo, nice that you mention the auditing profession.
Now, go look up how many auditors Medicare employs to check for fraud and abuse in their claims.
Here’s a hint: There’s a very good reason why their operating expenses are so low… they skimp on a lot of things. That, plus the enormous amount of fraud in the Medicare system, should give you a real good head start on answering the query above.
Sorry, vivo, but none of the current proposals extend healthcare coverage to “the entire US population.” Most will expand coverage from the current 85% to 94-95% (see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34034975/ns/politics-health_care_reform/ ). So by spending $1-2 trillion extra every 10 years, we can expand coverage by 9%…
Keep in mind who is counted as uninsured. From the 2007 Census data, of the 46 million uninsured:
- 10 million are illegal aliens (none of the current proposals aim to cover them).
- 8 million already qualify for Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP (they simply haven’t enrolled).
- 17 million make over $50,000 a year -which is the AVERAGE US household income…
Would you consider subsidized public health insurance for those making above the national average? Of those 17 million, 9 million earn over $75,000! Still want to include them among the truly “uninsured”…? True, some may well be “uninsurable,” but I doubt they’re the brunt of the group.
Subtracting the above leaves 11 million Americans who are truly uninsured. They should be helped… but at a cost of 1 – 2 trillion per decade? For years, liberals accused Bush of expanding the deficit by needlessly spending billions in the Iraq war. Yet this recurring program will cost as much as two Iraq wars going on simultaneously, for the rest of our lives, and not a word of complaint about cost is heard among the liberals…
I doubt the current proposals will significantly “reduce the cost of medications,” given that Obama already struck a backroom deal with the Pharma Industry (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/health/policy/06insure.html ) to cap any drug price cuts at $80 billion in 10 years (about 2.7% of Big Pharma’s US annual sales). Gee, ya think maybe that’s why Big Pharma put up millions to campaign in favor of the reform plans??
I’d love to see proposals that would “reduce doctors insurance premiums” (I assume you mean through tort reform) and allow out-of-state insurance competition. But none of the Democrat proposals address these issues -it’s the Republicans who talk about them.
Howard Dean stated, ” the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on…” (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53126 ) In other words, it’s OK to take on the Insurance industry, the Biomedical industry, assorted medical societies, or cut deals with Big Pharma or the AMA, etc. But let’s not anger the trial lawyers… Could this have anything to do with the fact that nearly 80% of lawyer donations in 2008 went to Democrats, with Obama alone receiving nearly half of all donations? (see; http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.php?ind=K01 )
The fundamental problem with current proposals is they simply shift much of the cost from the private to the public sector; they address WHO pays, not WHY we pay so much (or how to make it cheaper). Instead of fixing the fatal flaw in the American system, they prolong it with government financing.
Chileno @ 21:
Nail. Head.
Insurance coverage and Health Care are not the same thing. Anyone can go to a doctor and pay cash for service.