Thursday, May 20, 2004
The truth about "Cover the Uninsured Week"
[Michael F. Cannon, "'Cover the Uninsured Week' -- With Honesty," The Cato Institute, 20 May 2004.]
This column provides some exceptional information on the numbers behind the push for covering the uninsured:
Last week's national "Cover the Uninsured Week" should have kicked off with a little honesty. The campaign is a coalition of over 100 groups that inundated Americans with advertisements, events, and pleas from former presidents and celebrity spokesmen "to publicize the problem of allowing nearly 44 million Americans to live without health care coverage, and to highlight proposed solutions." The first problem the coalition should have addressed is how it is misleading the public.
Originally, "40-something-million-uninsured" meant the persistently uninsured, i.e., those who lacked health insurance for the entire year. The Congressional Budget Office shot holes in that statistic last May when it reported the correct figure is between 21 million and 31 million. Difficult as it may be to believe, an official government statistic was off the mark by maybe 110 percent.
The CBO's figures may still be too high because they count millions of Americans who are Medicaid-eligible, and therefore have coverage whenever they need it. One-third of all "uninsured" children (2.9 million) fall into this category (the CBO gives no estimate for adults). Moreover, the persistently uninsured are mostly young (39 percent are under age 25, and another 22 percent are under age 35) or healthy (86 percent report their health to be "good," "very good," or "excellent").
Not every Cover the Uninsured Week sponsor supports expanding government programs. But once they commit to covering all the uninsured, there is no way to reach that goal short of compulsory health coverage. Whether it is administered by government or the private sector, compulsory health coverage means government-run health care. The campaign's official glossary even defines the underinsured as "people who have some type of health insurance, such as catastrophic care, but not enough insurance to cover all their health care costs." It's clear that Cover the Uninsured Week will drag on until all health care costs are socialized and individual responsibility is nil.
A better goal would be to restore to America's largely socialized health care system the market processes where producers compete to provide consumers with value, and consumers keep costs down by patronizing efficient producers and avoiding inefficient producers. That patient-centered process has begun with the introduction this year of health savings accounts, and it will do more to provide quality, affordable health care to the masses than a century of Cover the Uninsured Weeks.
[For more on debunking the numbers, see Matthew Hisrich, "Greatest increase in uninsured found among wealthy," The Flint Hills Center, 10 May 2004.]
[Michael F. Cannon, "'Cover the Uninsured Week' -- With Honesty," The Cato Institute, 20 May 2004.]
This column provides some exceptional information on the numbers behind the push for covering the uninsured:
Last week's national "Cover the Uninsured Week" should have kicked off with a little honesty. The campaign is a coalition of over 100 groups that inundated Americans with advertisements, events, and pleas from former presidents and celebrity spokesmen "to publicize the problem of allowing nearly 44 million Americans to live without health care coverage, and to highlight proposed solutions." The first problem the coalition should have addressed is how it is misleading the public.
Originally, "40-something-million-uninsured" meant the persistently uninsured, i.e., those who lacked health insurance for the entire year. The Congressional Budget Office shot holes in that statistic last May when it reported the correct figure is between 21 million and 31 million. Difficult as it may be to believe, an official government statistic was off the mark by maybe 110 percent.
The CBO's figures may still be too high because they count millions of Americans who are Medicaid-eligible, and therefore have coverage whenever they need it. One-third of all "uninsured" children (2.9 million) fall into this category (the CBO gives no estimate for adults). Moreover, the persistently uninsured are mostly young (39 percent are under age 25, and another 22 percent are under age 35) or healthy (86 percent report their health to be "good," "very good," or "excellent").
Not every Cover the Uninsured Week sponsor supports expanding government programs. But once they commit to covering all the uninsured, there is no way to reach that goal short of compulsory health coverage. Whether it is administered by government or the private sector, compulsory health coverage means government-run health care. The campaign's official glossary even defines the underinsured as "people who have some type of health insurance, such as catastrophic care, but not enough insurance to cover all their health care costs." It's clear that Cover the Uninsured Week will drag on until all health care costs are socialized and individual responsibility is nil.
A better goal would be to restore to America's largely socialized health care system the market processes where producers compete to provide consumers with value, and consumers keep costs down by patronizing efficient producers and avoiding inefficient producers. That patient-centered process has begun with the introduction this year of health savings accounts, and it will do more to provide quality, affordable health care to the masses than a century of Cover the Uninsured Weeks.
[For more on debunking the numbers, see Matthew Hisrich, "Greatest increase in uninsured found among wealthy," The Flint Hills Center, 10 May 2004.]
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