It's All About The Numbers Mr. Obama!

In 2008, America spent roughly $2.2 trillion dollars, or 16% of the GDP, for health care. Based on a population of 300 million people, that is an average cost of more than $7,300 per person per year. However, we know that 46 million Americans don't have any health insurance. That means that those who do have insurance wind up footing the bill for those that don't. This, then, means the average cost of health insurance among those who have insurance is closer to $8,600 than the previously stated $7,300. On top of that, Medicare and Medicaid patients -- about 44 million people -- underpay the real cost of health care by about 20%. Therefore, that means the health care system is being underpaid by approximately $400 billion dollars a year by those two government insurance programs. That cost doesn't go away. Instead it is picked up, again, by all those who have private non-Medicare/non-Medicaid insurance. So, effectively, the real average cost for health care for those having private insurance turns out to be about $10,200 a year.

People who are self-employed probably pay close to that amount. However, most people -- the one's who get employer-based insurance -- don't see that amount because half or more of the cost is being picked up by the employer.

That brings me to Obama's town hall meeting in Ohio yesterday (Click to See Full Story: Obama seeks to reassure seniors on health care). In his introductory speech on, once again, health care reform, he related a story of a woman by the name of Natoma Canfield who was a professional, self-employed cleaning woman. Ms. Canfield had to cancel her health insurance because the premiums rose to $8,500 a year and she just couldn't afford it. She subsequently contracted cancer and, I think you can figure out the worst-case scenario that followed from there.

The situation that Ms. Canfield found herself in is certainly a sad one. However, what Mr. Obama failed to explain in his use (or abuse) of her as an example is that the amount of money that Ms. Canfield was being asked to pay for health care insurance was more than fairly representative of what the true cost is for any self-employed worker in America. What's more, ObamaCare wouldn't change that. In fact, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office has indicated that Ms. Canfield's cost for private insurance cost is likely to go up under ObamaCare; especially when another $500 billion in Medicare cuts is implimented. Additionally, under the plan that Obama and the Democrat's have for health care reform, Ms. Canfield wouldn't be allowed to cancel her health insurance. If she did, she would be fined as much as $4,000 yearly; and, that fine wouldn't give her one iota's worth of health insurance coverage. It's just a fine that goes into the coffers of the Federal Government.

In typical fashion, Obama uses extreme examples that are complete distortions of the truth in order to sell his lies about ObamaCare. Sadly, and just like some ruthless con-man, he uses a poor woman with cancer to scam his target -- the American public.