Associated Press Attempts To Rally The Uninsured To March On Washington
All that’s missing from this overwrought article bemoaning the number of Americans without health insurance is the name and contact information for an AP reporter who will organize the march of the uninsured on Washington.
WASHINGTON – If the uninsured were a political lobbying group, they’d have more members than AARP. The National Mall couldn’t hold them if they decided to march on Washington.
But going without health insurance is still seen as a personal issue, a misfortune for many and a choice for some. People who lose coverage often struggle alone instead of turning their frustration into political action.
Illegal immigrants rallied in Washington during past immigration debates, but the uninsured linger in the background as Congress struggles with a health care overhaul that seems to have the best odds in years of passing.
That isolation could have profound repercussions.
The obvious intent here is to create the notion that there are armies of uninsured Americans out there who are struggling with out health coverage. But that’s not exactly accurate.
For instance, some 500,000 people nationwide who were eligible for the Child Health Insurance Program (the old one, not the expanded behemoth the Democrats have passed into law) haven’t enrolled in it. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I routinely see articles like this one in the media about bureaucrats trying to close the “health care gap” by getting people signed up for government programs they’re eligible for.
What’s more, while politicians like Obama like to toss around a US Census number tabulating some 45 million Americans as being uninsured, the reality is that tens of millions of those 45 million are eligible for existing government health care programs and simply have not enrolled in them. This is a hard number to quantify, but ballpark it’s around 30 million people with another approximately 12 million having income levels above $50,000/year which is certainly enough for most people to secure their own health care.
So, even going with conservative estimates on the number of the uninsured who have insurance available to them, the reality is that most of them really are choosing to be uninsured.
Given that reality, why should Americans be stuck paying exhorbitantly high new taxes (not to mention get stuck opting-in to a one-size-fits-all government health care system that gives us all universal access to the same mediocre care) given that most of the people who don’t have health insurance now aren’t covered by choice?
We can’t save people from themselves. The sooner we stop trying, the better off we’ll be.
