Healthcare costs: Not a mixed verdict but bad journalism
An AP writer says that the newly passed bill will raise "projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years". He says that means the healthcare bill is a "mixed verdict".
Hmm, lets use numbers, something journalists don't seem to comprehend.
The population of the US is slightly over 300 million people and there are slightly more than 50 million unemployed. Let's round both. That means 250 million people have insurance. The journalist says that the result on the bill is the "adding 34 million Americans to the coverage rolls". 34 is 13.6% of 250. We're increasing costs 1% and increasing coverage by more than 13%? To me, that sounds like we're controlling costs. We're bringing down the per capita cost of health care.
Of course, one argument might be that the government doesn't cover all the healthcare costs now, so the 1% and 13% aren't directly related. I agree. However, I've seen nobody providing statistics about how many people the government covers through medicare, to soldiers and via the veteran's administration. Nor does it count our tax dollars that pay for the federal government's health care provided to its employees. How much through other programs that provide medical coverage to children?
In addition, part of the reason we won't achieve optimal savings is because the same complaining Republicans and a few idiot Democrats prevented a public option from happening. The government bargaining for health care discounts for a lot of people would have driven down prices.
I'm happy that conservative estimates say that Obama made the right choice and sad that Republicans prevented us from saving even more.
Hmm, lets use numbers, something journalists don't seem to comprehend.
The population of the US is slightly over 300 million people and there are slightly more than 50 million unemployed. Let's round both. That means 250 million people have insurance. The journalist says that the result on the bill is the "adding 34 million Americans to the coverage rolls". 34 is 13.6% of 250. We're increasing costs 1% and increasing coverage by more than 13%? To me, that sounds like we're controlling costs. We're bringing down the per capita cost of health care.
Of course, one argument might be that the government doesn't cover all the healthcare costs now, so the 1% and 13% aren't directly related. I agree. However, I've seen nobody providing statistics about how many people the government covers through medicare, to soldiers and via the veteran's administration. Nor does it count our tax dollars that pay for the federal government's health care provided to its employees. How much through other programs that provide medical coverage to children?
In addition, part of the reason we won't achieve optimal savings is because the same complaining Republicans and a few idiot Democrats prevented a public option from happening. The government bargaining for health care discounts for a lot of people would have driven down prices.
I'm happy that conservative estimates say that Obama made the right choice and sad that Republicans prevented us from saving even more.