Posted on 07/30/2009 1:43:34 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
(CNSNews.com) - In a nationally televised primetime press conference tonight, President Barack Obama falsely claimed there are 47 million Americans without health insurance.
This inflated claim of the number of uninsured Americans was even higher than the false claim of 46 million uninsured Americans that the president’s Council of Economic Advisers made last month.
The Census Bureau says that there are only 35.92 million uninsured Americans and that this number includes 9.1 million people who earn more than $75,000 a year and simply choose not to purchase insurance.
“This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance,” Obama said in a prepared statement at the start of his Wednesday night press conference. “Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job, or change their job.”
But Obama’s claim of 47 million uninsured is not supported by the Census Bureau report, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007,” which was published in August 2008 and is the government’s most up-to-date official report on the number of uninsured in the United States.
This Census report says that within the borders of the United States as of 2007 there were 45.65 people without health insurance. But this number, according to the Census Bureau, included 9.73 million foreigners, leaving only 35.92 Americans who were uninsured.
The Census Bureau also said that the number of uninsured people was declining.
“Both the percentage and number of people without health insurance decreased in 2007,” said the Census Bureau report.
Among the uninsured in the United States, the Census Bureau said, there were also 9.1 million people making more than $75,000 per year who did not choose to purchase health insurance.
On June 2, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report entitled, “The Economic Case for Health Care Reform.” The report falsely claimed that there were 46 million Americans who lacked health insurance--as opposed to the 47 million claimed by the president tonight.
“Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance,” said the CEA report.
CEA Chair Christina Romer published an op-ed on Yahoo! News the same day that made the same false claim. “Health care expenditures in this country are currently 18 percent of GDP and, without change, will keep rising, until they account for nearly one-third of our total output by 2040,” wrote Romer. “Even with this exorbitant bill, about 46 million Americans lack health insurance coverage today, and this number is predicted to rise to 72 million over the next three decades.”
Like the CEA report and commentary by CEA Chair Romer, President Obama’s inflated claim of the number of uninsured Americans was not an off-the-cuff remark. It came in the prepared text at the beginning of the president's press conference that should have been checked and vetted by White House staff.
The president cited no source for his claim that there are 47 million uninsured Americans.
Since the White House first falsely claimed in June that there were 46 million uninsured Americans, CNSNews.com has reported on the correct Census Bureau figure on multiple occasions. Radio show host Mark Levin has also repeatedly pointed out the discrepancy between the White House claim of 46 million uninsured Americans and the Census Bureau’s assertion that almost 10 million of that number are not Americans but foreigners who happened to be present in the United States in 2007.
Each year in August, the Census Bureau releases an annual report citing the number of uninsured—“Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States.” The next report should be released next month, reporting the number of uninsured for 2008.
The numbers in the new report—including the number of foreigners uninsured in the United States—could play into the health-care reform debate, especially if a bill is not passed by Congress before the August recess.
The Census report released in 2005, said there were 45.82 million uninsured people in the United States in 2004 of which 9.54 million were foreigners. This means that the number of uninsured Americans declined from 36.28 to 35.92 between 2004 and 2007.
Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, the number of uninsured foreigners in the United States increased by 190,000 during the same period.
No doubt 11 million have lost their jobs and no longer have insurance since the last report came out.
Stuck on Stupid(ly) ?
bfl
So far....everything he has said is false. Including what he hasn’t said about his citizenship.
Please! He’s a community organizer and can’t be bothered by details.
Another discrepancy I hear thrown around is at any instant in time only about 1/2 that number don’t have insurance. The census number is people that don’t have insurance for 3 or more months of the year or something.. So the 36ish million is people that don’t have insurance for part of 2007 or 2008.
To be correct he should say about 18-20M Americans don’t have insurance today.
Supposedly they were picking up ELEVEN MILLION uninsured children (moving from the uninsured to insured counts) in April when the new cigarette taxes went into effect, but the 47 million number was never adjusted after that.
How did the idiot think that happened? Jobs are being shipped overseas because of all the freakin’ lawsuits, AA, and other social experiments.
Liberal Dems are refusing to accept the “Blue Dog” compromise!
Referring of course to the House plan for
39 million. Say there really are 47 million. 7 million are young adult wage earners who have no need for it. At LEAST 12 million (and more like 20 million) are illegal immigrants. They should not get free coverage at all.
At any given time, there are probably 10 million who are between jobs. So what are we really doing here? That number drops more and more when you scrutinize. Here’s a novel approach: Let those without coverage receive a temporary Medicare card. Pay for the additional coverage out of the unused Bailout money — after all, they have only spent 10% of it so far.
The number will rise to about 200 million un-insured, once Socialized Medicine is passed, and after ACORN massages the Census numbers.
Amen, brutha!
I lost my job and still have health insurance.
I guess that is why Obama wants to turn the census over to ACORN.
There are NO uninsured people in this country. Those who don’t have PRIVATE insurance can go to any emergency room and receive instant care, courtesy of the tax payer.
We have the best health insurance in the world, and the Big 0 wants to ration it.
What people should know is that according to the census bureau there are over 36 billion people age 65 or over. Obama wants to kill them off with rationing.
There are 20 million illegal ALIENS and I refuse to pay a penny for any of their health care. Get the hell out of my country until you follow our laws!!
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BRAVO!!!!!!!! I’m with you, it’s time to say HELL NO and stave the beast. I have never been more opposed to anything our government has done as I am with this bill. NO NO NO, UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!! I will not accept it.
Say, these 47 million receive coverage and decide to seek frivolous medical care. Where would the country get the facilities, nurses and doctors to care for this influx of 47 million new patients???
That was the point. There are NOT 47 million, not even half that number. Do the math. There are always going to be about 18 million without health coverage. The illegals need to be cut off completely.
I don’t have health insurance because every company I’ve applied to turns me down, as I have a pre-existing health condition: high blood pressure.
And sure, I could go to an emergency room for emergencies, as I did when I crashed my mountain bike, but if I suddenly have chest pains, or I find a lump in my leg, or if I have any other weird symptoms I want checked out to see if I have some horrible disease or not, the ER won’t conduct a series of tests for me and treat me.
True, I go to doctors, but at $175 a visit, and $225 for blood tests, pretty soon the costs mount up.
And if I DID have cancer, heart disease or any other major disease I am comletely screwed...there’s no way I can come up with $250,000 to $500,000 to pay the doctors.
There was a woman in my town, with kids, who got a brain tumor. She couldn’t afford the operation and didn’t have health insurance.
People ran fund raisers, there were stories about her financial needs, but she DIED because she couldn’t raise the $300,000 cash that the hospital/surgery/doctors needed before they would operate on her.
There IS a health insurance crisis in America. I don’t believe that in a country as wealthy as America that women with children should be dying of brain cancer because they don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars on hand to pay for their brain surgery.
As for myself, I’m in good health, but God help me if I get cancer, have a heart attack or simply get in a major car accident that requires multiple surgeries and extensive rehab. Right now I couldn’t afford it, and I would probably die from my lack of care.
I hope that somehow when health care passes that I can simply do what so many other millions have done: pay a monthly fee to a company and get health insurance, even if it’s just catastrophic.
But please, be aware, the Pollyanna histrionics by so many in the conservative camp belie a real, horrifying fact: millions of middle class Americans CANNOT get health insurance, like myslef, and we are on major illness or accident away from a needless death.
Ed
The Census Bureau says that there are only 35.92 million uninsured Americans and that this number includes 9.1 million people who earn more than $75,000 a year and simply choose not to purchase insurance.It also includes the people who have no private insurance, but are eligible for various other existing government programs. And of course, philathropists like George Soros and Ted Kennedy are glad to pick up the tabs for the needy (just not with their own money). Thanks Ernest.
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