The Los Angeles Times reports that the government pushed to reassess the number of Americans without health insurance. New research suggests the number may have been overstated by as much as 20 percent
That could mean 9 million fewer uninsured, reducing the total to 36 million from the 45 million reported for 2003, the latest year for which data are available.
Whew! Only 36 million people lost in our health care system. What a relief that must be to the White House and Congress!
Joseph Antos, a health policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, told the Times that politically "there would be a lot less interest in dealing with the uninsured if it turned out there weren't so many," adding, "There would be accusations that (the administration) was rigging the numbers to make a serious problem go away." Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University economist, said "Instead of addressing the problem, we say we must count the uninsured. It is literally, in my view, like making sure we know how many deck chairs we have on the Titanic."