Is it time for universal health in America?

The Associated Press

Time for a change?

Featured Topic | Posted 13 weeks 3 days ago

Is it time for universal health in America?

More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday. Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Is it time for universal health insurance in the United States?

Ben likes: Five Myths of Health Care

Sally Pipes/Washington Times

Forty-seven million Americans do not have health insurance. This figure comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. What most people don't know, however, is that the Bureau counts anyone who went without health insurance during any part of the previous year as "uninsured." So if you weren't covered for just one day in 2007, you're one of the 47 million.

That also includes 10.2 million illegal immigrants, and about 14 million people who are eligible for public health-care programs like Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program but have yet to enroll. And nearly 10 million of the "uninsured" have household incomes of more than $75,000 — so they can probably afford to buy health insurance but choose not to.

Joel likes: Why 2009 is the year for universal health care

Ezra Klein/The American Prospect

In 1994, 37 million Americans were uninsured. In 2007, 47 million are. Between 1996 and 2005, an employee's spending on health premiums for his or her family has shot up 85 percent -- and incomes, of course, have not followed.

In economics, there's a famous dictum known as Stein's Law, which states that when something cannot go on forever, it will stop. Our health-care system, as currently composed, cannot go on forever. It will wreck our economy, collapse our businesses, render both private and public insurance unaffordable. And so, it will stop. Reform is not a question of if, but when and how.