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Socialized medicine: Trick or Treat?
By Rep. Bill Hinkle
It is Halloween today
and certain politicians in Washington and across the country are
using inflated, exaggerated and flawed numbers to frighten the nation.
Their goal is simple – they want a socialized, single-payer health
system, and they believe scaring Americans is the way to get it.
For example, I
continually hear 47 million Americans are without health insurance,
18,000 Americans die each year as a result of lacking health insurance,
and medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy. But where do
these ghost and goblin facts come from? One source: Supporters of a
socialized, government-funded health system.
Michael Tanner,
director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute, disputed
the fact that 47 million Americans are without insurance. In a recent article, Tanner said, “That estimate
dramatically overstates the extent of the actual problem. To begin with,
about 14 million of those people -- almost a third -- are currently
eligible for Medicaid, SCHIP, or other government programs and simply
haven't signed up for those programs. In addition, about eight to 10 million
of those folks are actually illegal aliens and, of the remainder, a
healthy portion has voluntarily gone without it.”
In Washington, only
9.1 percent of the population is without health insurance, and 4.2
percent of the uninsured are non-citizens. Only 1.3 percent of children
do not have health insurance or are not eligible for a current
government health insurance program. It is also important to point out
that over 50 percent of the uninsured are in the 19-to-34 age group,
many of whom choose not to have insurance.
I firmly believe all
Americans deserve access to affordable health care and we need to
control the rising costs, but the solution is to put patients back in
control, not government.
This means we need to
reform the private health-insurance market to provide individuals and
employers with insurance products that meet their specific needs.
Individuals also need information about the cost and quality of health-care services, which allows for informed decisions, creates market
pressures and lowers prices. At the federal level, changes need to be
made to the tax code to provide individuals with the same tax benefits
as employers in purchasing health insurance.
This Halloween, I
encourage everyone to stay away from the house that is offering the
"socialized health-care candy apple", and go to the house that allows
you to choose what candy you want.
I hope everyone has a
safe and happy Halloween.
Rep. Bill Hinkle,
R-Cle Elum, serves as lead Republican on the House Health Care and Wellness
Committee. He can be
contacted at (360) 786-7808, toll-free at 1-800-562-6000, or via e-mail
at hinkle.bill@leg.wa.gov.
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For more information, contact:
Mike Deising, Public
Information Officer - (360) 786-7698
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