Regarding the canard of the "uninsured" used by Ms. Green and other single-payer advocates. This is another example of using a broad statistic to hide the truth. This 45 or so million "uninsured" Americans represents 15 percent of the population. Does any reasonable person think we should negatively impact the other 85 % to help the 15%? Of course not. Then, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis shows that the Obama/Kennedy plan, the "public" or gov't option insurance, will still only cover a fraction of those, at something like $60,000 per person per year. Sheer monetary madness, not unlike the analysis that found that the cost per private sector job from the stimulus would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, based on the stimulus plus debt per the projected jobs (meaning anybody's guess).
Then, analysis I've seen from Heritage.org, has a breakdown of the supposed 45 million uninsured. (Here is the actual Heritage study of the uninsured numbers. Mine are off around the margins but the larger points are accurate) Something like 10-15 million are young and choose not to spend the money on insurance (this makes the case that they choose to pay for what they need, don't usually need much and hence make a decision in their own interests to spend their money elsewhere--they could be persuaded to contribute to so-called catastrophic care insurance which would be in their interest to not face the prospect of huge bills for accidents or rare disease and they still wouldn't likely use it and that money would contribute to the system).
Then there are those without insurance because they are in between jobs and will have insurance with their new job. This makes the case for figuring out a way to make the insurance a personal expense, with policies free from gov't mandates, allowing for economical, basic health insurance for those in between jobs. That makes more of a case for the gov't getting out, not into, the health care business.
Then there are many millions that already qualify for existing gov't programs, without those programs even being expanded. Those people just haven't registered and aside from those that just don't know they qualify, others have their own reasons for avoiding gov't programs.
Then there are at least 10 million illegal aliens among that 45 million and they shouldn't be here, should be encouraged in every way possible to return to their countries and get in line like their countrymen to come here. Their jobs will, happily, be available for Americans or legal immigrants to take and if there is a little more competition by employers for hiring, that translates to better wages and benefits, like, say, employer provided health insurance or, wild ideal, employer provided medical savings accounts.
That leave somewhere between 5 and 10 million uninsured, based on analysis by Heritage Foundation, I think. Single payer people want us to turn the current health insurance/care applecart upside down, for 5-10 million uninsured, at a cost of a huge new gov't program and TRILLIONS of dollars that you, you Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. taxpayer or your children or grandchildren, will have to pay for the pleasure of bringing about misery like they have in other countries. (Or, if there are countries that are happy with their system, like France, for instance, that comes at the cost of about 3 different dedicated taxes and even then France runs annual deficits of $10-15 billion.)
http://www.heritage.org/Press/NewsReleases/nr082807a.cfm
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