Cowboy Confessional

With Obama’s help I could be wearing a solid gold cast. That is what my share of $1.6 trillion dollars would buy.

Sadly, I am currently sporting a plain plaster variety, having cracked a fibular while in combat with a larger opponent. For all my martial arts training, it is irony personified that that I was broken during a light sparing session. A lesson to other roughnecks: never allow a larger opponent to stay in a head-to-head position where they can charge forward like a blind bull.

Like 85% of Americans, I have private health insurance. For whatever maladies Americans face, our capitalist system has assured that the vast majority of Homo sapiens roaming the American tundra and in the concrete canyons of our big cities have coverage. Contrast this with any third world country or Compton, where people are allowed to die in the streets, this accomplishment of capitalism is compelling.

This perspective is not discussed by Obama. Politicians avoid perspective because it has the nasty habit of preventing legislative larceny. Thus they rely on large, scary sounding numbers routinely amplified with words like ‘crisis’. Barack and other capital courtesans have of late been repeating the sound bite that ‘there are 45 million uninsured Americans.’

Obama’s cure costs a mere $1.6 trillion dollars.

(A brief aside. Long ago a sitting senator joked “A billion here, a billion there, and soon we’re talking real money.” In the last year we have routinely talked about trillions, thanks to a series of government interventions into non-catastrophes. Obama is capitalizing on our collective fiscal desensitization. After all, what’s a trillion dollars between friends and future serfs?)

A trillion and a half bucks is a big investment even by beltway budget standards. Since this is coming out of your pocket, it might be worth examining who these 45 million uninsured people are. You deserve to know – you are their financier (click the chart to get a bigger picture of the fraud de jour).

According to the Census Bureau, there is a little north of 300 million head of humans in The States. Subtract Obama’s alleged 45 million uninsured individuals and you can calculate that 85% have coverage. Various governments insure or repair roughly another 5% through existing programs like Medicare or through prison infirmaries (these estimates are based on government statistics concerning safety net healthcare programs and national incarceration rates).

There are also a significant number – about half – of young adults who can afford to buy insurance but opt not to. Young men and women have other priorities, namely stylish clothing and copious alcohol consumption. The alcohol is a primary tool to get other young adults to remove their stylish clothing.

As interesting as the mating habits of the young and inebriated may be, their uninsured status is completely voluntary. In California, one of the more expensive states in which to be insured, a twenty-something specimen in their vertical and clothed condition can walk into any insurance office and buy a major medical policy for $100 a month. Unclothed applicants might receive a discount. That young adult’s priorities are slightly misplaced is predictable, amusing but not a public policy issue.

This leaves about 5% American residents – as opposed to Americans – uninsured and not covered by existing government programs. This five percent is approximately 16 million mortals, which oddly enough is roughly the number of assumed illegal aliens in residence.

Divide a few of these numbers and you discover that over the ten year budget horizon, Obama plans to purchase insurance for structurally uninsured individuals at a rate of $833 per person per month, or about eight times the going commercial rate. Oddly this speaks well of Obama’s plan given most government run programs are not nearly this financially efficient.

Nobody is accusing Obama of trying to pick the national pocket to support and encourage illegal immigrants and immigration. We have to take Obama on his word the he intends to have the government underwrite 45 million folk. To do so would require insuring those who can afford it, effectively transforming independent and self-sufficient young citizens into a dependant class. Minting disciples among the young is an effective means to manufacture loyalty.

Just ask Nicolae Ceauşescu, though his final outcome was not entirely to his liking.

Let’s assume for a moment that the structurally uninsured could skim by on major medical coverage and that their rates are not much different than most middle aged men. Sixteen million mammals could be covered for the relatively low sum of $19 billion over a ten year stretch, or about 1% of what Obama wants to squander.

A trillion here, and a trillion there. Pretty soon we’re talking about Obama’s budget.

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