Obamacare--doesn't save, doesn't stretch, doesn't strengthen

Check out the FactCheck.org analysis and number crunching of Obama's prime time address on health care on July 22. Summary:

"Obama promised once again that a health care overhaul “will be paid for.” But congressional budget experts say the bills they've seen so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.

He said the plan "that I put forward" would cover at least 97 percent of all Americans. Actually, the plan he campaigned on would cover far less than that, and only one of the bills now being considered in Congress would do that.

He said the "average American family is paying thousands" as part of their premiums to cover uncompensated care for the uninsured, implying that expanded coverage will slash insurance costs. But the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation puts the cost per family figure at $200.

Obama claimed his budget "reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion" compared with where it was headed before. Not true. Even figures from his own budget experts don't support that. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $2.7 trillion increase, not a $2.2 trillion cut

The president said that the United States spends $6,000 more on average than other countries on health care. Actually, U.S. per capita spending is about $2,500 more than the next highest-spending country. Obama's figure was a White House-calculated per-family estimate."

It's too bad we can't get a REAL figure on the REALLY uninsured American--the one who either doesn't want insurance, or who doesn't sign up for the aid that is available. I've heard reports of 10% or less. Why can't he go to work on that group? Rhetorical, of course. If he did only that, then he couldn't take over another segment of the economy! When Congress went to work on S-CHIP (after welfare reform they wanted their dependants back), the minimum family income incrementally was raised to around $80,000 to qualify, and that was under Bush (Congress does it, not the President).

FactCheck broke down the 46 million uninsured figure this way in 2007 (would be higher now due to higher unemployment, which Obama is exacerbating):

Twenty-six percent of the uninsured are eligible for some form of public coverage but do not make use of it, according to The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation. This is sometimes, but not always, a matter of choice.

Twenty-one percent of the uninsured are immigrants, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But that figure includes both those who are here legally and those who are not. The number of illegal immigrants who are included in the official statistics is unknown.

Twenty percent of the uninsured have family incomes of greater than $75,000 per year, according to the Census Bureau. But this does not necessarily mean they have access to insurance. Even higher-income jobs don't always offer employer-sponsored insurance, and not everyone who wants private insurance is able to get it.

Forty percent of the uninsured are young, according to KFF. But speculation that they pass up insurance because of their good health is unjustified. KFF reports that many young people lack insurance because it's not available to them, and people who turn down available insurance tend to be in worse health, not better, according to the Institute of Medicine.

Occasionally I talk to a young man (40) who has been on either unemployment or disability for the last 3 years or so. He is college educated, owns a house which he partially rents to people with similar problems, has sold all his investments, and is scrambling to cobble together insurance for his multiple medications and his bills. Believe me, when the government takes care of you, it's no easy life! Fortunately, he has a mother and father (divorced, living in different states, but well employed) who can help him. When I listen to his tale of woe (often and repeated because it's his obsession), I realize that government programs, even those that are essential for the very needy, keep a person in perpetual poverty and tied up in red tape.