Health Care and the 47 Million: A Breakdown

The absurd figure being tossed about by the Socialists in an effort to ram socialized health care and rationing down our collective throat are the "47 million uninsured Americans." Before I break that figure down, let's examine it just on its face. One, some simple math says that 253 million Americans have insurance. That's a lot of people to punish. The other key word here is "uninsured". It's not "47 million Americans with no access to health care at all", but that's the way the Socialists are selling it, as if one necessarily leads to the other: No insurance = no health care. That in itself is false and a lie. And now it's time for the breakdown:

20%, 9.4 million, aren't even Americans; they are non-U.S. Citizens (1)
43%, 20 million, earn enough to buy insurance but are healthy and choose not to (2)
25%, 11 million, already qualify for government-subsidized health care but choose, for whatever reason, not to get it (3)
12%, 6.6 million, those who make too much to qualify for Medicare but truly don't make enough to purchase private insurance.

So, if we are to do anything to reduce the number of uninsured, we should be targeting that last 6.6 million. Or better yet, let's understand why health care costs have skyrocketed (Hint: it's not 'greedy' doctors or insurance companies). Let's not punish the rest of American for a lie.

(1) U.S. Census Bureau estimates
(2) Employment Policy Institute
(3) Urban Institute