Do we really need universal health care?

According to a recently conducted survey reported by PennLive.com, 2 out of 3 in Pennsylvania want universal health care. Many of the reader comments that favor universal health care describe skyrocketing health care costs and a lack of affordable insurance options as their motivation.

Let's look at the facts. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that government programs will soon account for over 50 percent of health care spending in the US. This would imply that we already have "some form of universal health care." Some other interesting statistics about health care:

Many claim that there are 46 million uninsured Americans when 9.7 million are not Americans, 16 million make more than $50,000, and 14 million are eligible for government programs leaving 8 million as chronically uninsured. The rate of uninsured in the U.S. is steady at about 15-16% since the early 90’s. In Pennsylvania, about 92% are insured!

Medical bankruptcy is another hot button issue, even though an American Journal of Medicine study showed that 77.9 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy due to medical issues actually had insurance at the onset of their illness.

So where is all of this coming from? It would appear that the Obama Administration has taken a page out of the Alinksy playbook in manufacturing a health care crisis. According to the most recent US Census Bureau statistics, about 88 percent of those those with private insurance have employer-provided insurance. ABC reported that among insured Americans, 82 percent rate their health coverage positively.

Is our system perfect? Far from it. But when a 55 y/o male can get health insurance in Pennsylvania through Geisinger Choice for as low as $202/month, and a 25 y/o male can get insurance for as low as $53/month, it would seem that the situation is not as dire as we're being lead to believe. There is certainly room for reform but a complete government hijacking of the health care system is probably unnecessary.