47 Million People Don't Want Health Insurance

For the second time this week, I've learned some remarkable news. I've learned that the 47 million uninsured Americans don't really want health insurance. They are young, healthy, and Republican.

Steve Green writes,

Let’s be honest about something here. The biggest reason to mandate health insurance is to force young, healthy people (millions of whom neither want nor need insurance) to pay in, thus lowering rates (and thus transferring wealth) to millions of old people who have a lot more money than young people. But old people also vote a lot more than young people. And by and large they vote for Democrats.

This news has been picked up elsewhere. Someone on Fox News must have been mumbling some of this nonsense, since my mom started lecturing me about this over the weekend. Let's get our facts correct.

First of all, old people aren't all Democrats. 42% of Americans aged 65 to 74 identify as Republican.

Secondly, most of the uninsured are from working families. "Over 8 in 10 uninsured people came from working families – almost 70 percent from families with one or more full-time workers and 11 percent from families with part-time workers." More real facts about the uninsured here.

Comments

[Ed Harris]

I still like our system. We have an HSA and it works. Tax breaks and Network-negotiated discounts. McCain likes it too, and might expand the tax breaks.

[Don]

I turn 49 tomorrow, I don't want to have the federal government to decide how I live my life. The government already takes nearly 50% of what I make and I'm sick of it. If I get sick and pass on, then so be it. A man can't even die by his own terms anymore. It's pathetic. Give me Liberty or give me death. Gerald Ford once said, "A Government that is big enough to provide everything you need, is strong enough take take everything you have". I don't WANT it and shouldn't HAVE to pay for it. My taxes ALREADY go many places that I have no say over. Mark my word, there will be a revolution in this country, I may not see it, but traitors and those who commit treason to the principles of what our founding fathers laid out will eventually be hanging from trees.