The truth about mandatory health insurance

This excellent article by Betsy McCaughey appeared in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. She writes about how mandatory insurance shifts the costs to the young (who are very healthy) from the old (who use the system much more). "If people in their 20s paid attention to politics and voted, politicans wouldn't dare try [mandatory] health insurance." I'm guessing the Obama Iowa supporters did understand--he got the younger Democrats, and he was mum on health care mandates. The heaviest users of the ER aren't the uninsured--it's the elderly who are already covered by Medicare and those with mental illness.

Also, nearly 75% of the increase in uninsured people in the USA since 1990 consist of newcomers and their U.S. born children, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, Washington, DC. Most of this happens in five border states--Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas. But newly arrived immigrants are less likely to use ER than US citizens.

Of the 47 million uninsured, nearly 10 million have household incomes of at least $75,000--they could have it, but they don't, for whatever reason. Another 14 million of the uninsured are eligible for government programs that already are on the books, such as Medicaid or SCHIP and all they would need to do to be insured is SIGN UP!

So that leaves 23.7 million--many of them illegals. And for that our candidates are hand wringing and hyping the election--so we can insure people who are here illegally. Read it and weep. Americans are so gullible.

Her Bio: "Dr. McCaughey is founder and Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID) – http://www.hospitalinfection.org – a national campaign to support greater infection control in hospitals and other healthcare institutions. Her research on how to prevent infection deaths has been featured on ABC’s Good Morning America, the CBS Morning Show, 20/20, Dateline NBC, and many other national television and radio programs. McCaughey’s writings on health, education, and the law have appeared in many national publications, including Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and The Wall Street Journal. Her 1994 analysis of the Clinton health plan won the H.L. Mencken Award and the National Magazine Award for the best article in the nation on public policy." Some think she defeated HillaryCare of the early 90s, but we all know it went down in flames because of her unelected power grab. Dr. McCaughey also has written two books on the history of the U.S. Constitution (neither of which are in my public library, no surprise there).