Health Insurance for All Americans

The trumped up figure of 46 to 50 million Americans without health coverage includes five categories of roughly equal size depending upon the census and when it was taken: (a) illegal aliens who are not "Americans", (b) the poor who are already eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP but have not accessed either through an emergency room visit, but can be covered under existing plans for the poor, (c) those who are not covered for part of a year due to job change but will be covered once again through their own efforts (if unemployed for an extended period they could be temporarily eligible for government coverage like Medicaid and SCHIP), (d) those who earn over $50,000 per year but choose not to get health insurance but rather to spend their money on other items, these are often younger workers who believe they are in good health and are willing to gamble by not having insurance,(e) the truly needy who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but earn less than $50,000 and cannot afford health insurance along with other necessities. It is this last group of about 10 million Americans that need a plan comparable to Medicaid, perhaps vouchers to be used with any of the 1300 private health insurance providers in this country. This does not require a massive government takeover of the health care system or, as Obama proposes, a "government option" for health insurance, which will slowly displace all private health insurance that will not be able to compete with the government subsidized plan. This "government option" is the backdoor to socialized medicine.