UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal today published a good analysis of how hard it is to estimate the number of uninsured people in America: Carl Bialik, "The Unhealthy Accounting of Uninsured Americans."
The Census Bureau estimates that the number of uninsured amounts to 45.7 million people. [Unca D: Note: It's "people," not (as the Chronicle would have it) "Americans."] But the agency might be overcounting by millions due to faulty assumptions. Another problem: That 45.7 million figure includes undocumented immigrants, even though they aren't likely to be covered under new laws. [Unca: The number also includes millions of documented immigrants.]
NOW BACK to our regularly scheduled rant:
As I have explained four times before, the numbers in each of the following statements from Houston Chronicle editorial are demonstrably false. The Chronicle knows the numbers are false, but repeats them anyway. What does that tell you?
To see what's wrong with the numbers, consult Unca D's prior posts here, here, here, and here.
Houston Chronicle, "A Good Deal," June 24, 2009:
Among the world's 30 most developed countries, the United States is nosed out only by Mexico and Turkey for the highest percentage of uninsured -- one in seven Americans, for a total of more than 46 million . . . .
Houston Chronicle, "Unhealthy numbers," June 19, 2009:
The health-care debate . . . is all about the numbers -- dollars and people and, ultimately, better lives for us all. No number is more widely noticed or fretted about than this one: 47 million. That's the number of Americans estimated to be going without health-insurance coverage . . . .
Houston Chronicle, "Healthy approach," February 26:
We all know the numbers: 46 million Americans do without health care [read health-care] coverage . . . .
Houston Chronicle, "Critical care," February 7:
In 2007, 47 million Americans had no health insurance . . . .
Houston Chronicle, "Health care hope?" November 29:
The numbers alone give health care [read health-care] reform a sense of political inevitability . . . : 46 million Americans without health insurance.
It wouldn't cost the Chronicle much to get the numbers right. The newspaper's arguments for federalized health care, through wrong for other reasons, would not be seriously undermined by using an honest estimate for uninsured Americans.
Or, to consider another possibility, does the Chronicle reject the category distinction between citizen and noncitizen in the definition of "Americans." If so, it would a real hoot to read an editorial explaining why.
By the way, the Baker Institute report the Chronicle cites in today's latest screed in favor of nationalized medicine uses older data, but -- unlike the lying Chronicle -- carefully refers to uninsured "persons," not uninsured "Americans."
And while we're at it, if the editorialists ever read their own editorials, they might also notice that the numbers yo-yo between 46 million to 47 million and assign one of their legion of fact-checkers to ferret out which is correct.
Or, like you, they could just read Unca Darrell. Even better, the WSJ article above, which has more current numbers.
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