I Do Not Have To Agree to Disagree

I was speaking with a friend today and mentioned that roughly 85% of the country has health care insurance. He did not believe me and said we'd have to agree to disagree on this. I'm not writing this to show him up or prove I'm smarter. I'm writing this to let the reader know that my purpose is righteous and that I only seek to bring truth to those willing to listen. Because my arguments, if I'm quoting numbers or if there is something I assert as fact, it is because I can back it up. I don't just throw out statistics to support my point without knowing that they are not supportable and I usually will use the estimate that hurts my argument most to avoid distortion. So I don't have to agree to disagree.

Let's assume for one second that the administration is not using an exaggerated number when it says that there are 47 million people without insurance in this country (and I'll get to destroying this myth in a bit). At the end of 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population at 305 million and counting. Lets simplify this by increasing the number of insured to 50 million and decreasing the overall population to 300 million. It is clear then, that 1/6 of the country has no health care insurance, leaving 5/6 of the country as insured. I've done the math in my head as well as a calculator and reached the same result: 83 1/3 % of the country has insurance (or if you use the real numbers 84.59%). I will give the liberals credit in that the U.S. Census Bureau is the source of the 47 million number. They can latch on to bad news like a parasite to your small intestine.

OK, so now let's look at the 47 million uninsured. Non-citizens, who make up 7% of the population, account for 21% of the uninsured. A number which likely cannot be accurately calculated, but surely makes up a large portion of people between the ages of 18 and 40 is those who choose not to purchase coverage even though they could afford it (like me) because they'd rather use the money elsewhere. Let's also ignore EMTALA, the federal law that requires stabilization of patients before they can be transferred to another facility or allowed to leave. Further, let's ignore that emergency rooms across the nation provide care with the knowledge that they'll have to write off the bills. We also need to ignore that some states provide health care systems (Louisiana charity system) or mandate that hospitals provide a certain amount of care each year as charity (Texas at 5%) or that they have enacted a universal coverage system of their own (Massachusetts, broke, Oregon, no chemo, but we'll pay for assisted suicide, it's cheaper). Finally, let's pretend that there is no such thing as a charity hospital (like oh, say, Shriners International). It's also questionable how many of those uninsured are eligible for existing federal programs.

What you see from the above is that it takes a lot of pretending to believe that there is any sort of health care crisis in this country or that we have some horrible system of health care. Is it costly? Yes. Insurance drives costs up, not down as our economically challenged (or perhaps he's differently abled) President seems to believe.

My friend believes that we have a moral obligation to provide health care to all citizens, which he cannot get due to a preexisting condition. I believe that I have an obligation to do what I can to see that all people get health care. I have no idea what your moral obligation is, and I'm not willing to use the government to dictate a moral obligation to you (ironic how a group of people famous for screaming about how government should not influence their religion have no problem invoking it to dictate everyone else's morals). Maybe it's because people like Vice President Joe Biden doesn't believe in charity that they think government must act (he averaged $369.00 a year). Maybe it's because President Obama proposed removing tax exemptions for charity.

Or maybe I'm right. I think I've set out an argument even the most liberal person would have trouble disputing. I hope my friend knows that if he ever needed care he couldn't afford, I'd do everything in my power to get it taken care of, short of forcing others to pay for it, but I do not have to agree to disagree.