The Medically Uninsured

Last week, on CNBC, I saw a very provocative segment on 'the uninsured.'

The anchors, Trish Regan and Erin Burnett, began with the now familiar 40MM or so who are allegedly Americans without health insurance.

During the segment, Erin Burnett began to further describe each subsegment of the 40MM, identifying those who could afford insurance, but simply declined to enroll. Or those eligible for publicly-paid insurance, but, again, did not enroll. There were other groups, which, when totalled, left only 8MM really unqualified, poor, uninsured not covered, wanting coverage, and unable to afford health insurance.

I've since seen similar numbers elsewhere, too.

Quite the difference, eh? A factor of about 5x overstated 'uninsured.'

You'd hardly tear up an existing private insurance system just to insure 3% of Americans, would you?

Modfiy and improve the system? Yes. Eliminate it? No.