{"id":161981,"date":"2015-06-25T16:25:49","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T16:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=161981"},"modified":"2015-06-25T20:57:42","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T20:57:42","slug":"percentage-of-health-uninsureds-in-u-s-rises-by-1-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/percentage-of-health-uninsureds-in-u-s-rises-by-1-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Percentage of Health-Uninsureds in U.S. Rises by 1.7%"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Obama First Promised to Lower It by 100%<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

On 23 June 2015, Bloomberg news bannered\u00a0“Uninsured Rate Falls to Lowest Since Obamacare Implementation\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and reported that, “Last year, 16.3 percent of adults under age 65, or about 31.7 million people, lacked medical coverage, according to a CDC survey published Tuesday. That\u2019s down from 20.4 percent a year earlier [2013, when Obamacare started].\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, back at the start of 2008, when Barack Obama was campaigning against Hillary Clinton and they were both promising \u201cMaking health insurance universal\u201d<\/span><\/a> (The New York Times<\/i> said that Obama \u201caims for universal coverage\u201d<\/span><\/a>) or a 0% rate of uninsureds, the most-reliable figure at that time for the percentage who had no health insurance was\u00a0Gallup\u2019s: 14.6%.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Comparing that with the just-released figure from the CDC of 16.3%, there has been a rise in uninsureds, of 1.7%. (However, the latest figure from Gallup is from March 2015, 12.9%, which is a decline of 1.7% from that initial 14.6%, instead of an increase of 1.7% from it.)<\/span><\/p>\n

What happened since 2008 was that, when Obama became elected in November of that year, the Gallup percentage started rising to a peak of 18.0% in October 2013, when Obamacare first began enrolling people; and it has declined since that time, back down to (according to Gallup in March this year) 12.9%.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently, when Obama became elected, millions of Americans dropped their insurance in the expectation that much better policies (including a public option) would soon become available \u2013 those people didn\u2019t want to lock themselves into anything during that interim, while there was uncertainty as to what would soon become available. As the delays in Obamacare became unexpectedly extended until October 2013, more and more people simply became uninsured \u2013 waiting for something better. Obama is now comparing that peak versus the latest figures in order to show (by focusing on a claimed decline in uninsureds) that his promise of \u201cUniversal Coverage\u201d hasn\u2019t been a total lie \u2013 which it is, and was. The media play along with his fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Bloomberg and other news-media are now doing is to stenographically report the Administration\u2019s deceptions, by comparing the latest percentage to the peak percentage \u2013 which was about 17% in 2013 according to Gallup, or about 20% in 2013 according to CDC, which always shows around 3% higher figures than Gallup. That peak was artificially inflated by the accumulation of people waiting for Obamacare before making renewal-commitments; so, comparing to that peak in order to indicate progress at bringing the rate down in comparison to the situation that existed in 2008 is fraudulent. <\/span><\/p>\n

Honest would be to compare the 2008 uninsureds-rate versus the latest uninsureds-rate. (After all: 2008 is when the promise of \u201cMaking health insurance universal\u201d was being made, and upon which voters were relying. It wasn\u2019t being made in 2013 \u2013 five years after the election. The 2013 figure is irrelevant.) The latest percentage of uninsureds according to the CDC\u2019s just-released figure was actually 16.3% (which covered throughout all of 2014), but the latest figure in the Gallup survey, March 2015, was 12.9%. The CDC figures appear steadily to be approximately 3% higher than Gallup\u2019s. If the actual uninsureds-rate back in 2008 was 3% higher than Gallup\u2019s 14.6%, or was 17.6%, and if the March 2015 rate was not Gallup\u2019s 12.9% but instead was also 3% higher, or 15.9%, then the March 2015 uninsureds-rate is actually 1.7% lower than was the rate in 2008<\/b> \u2013 and that\u2019s probably the best possible way to estimate the effect that Obamacare has thus far had on the numbers of uninsured persons: The uninsureds-percentage is probably around 1.7% lower now than it was then.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The Bloomberg News report goes on to say that, “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has helped many\u00a0Americans get health insurance, including about 10 million through new\u00a0markets with government subsidies, and millions more through an\u00a0expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal\u00a0program for the poor.\u201d Bloomberg\u2019s stenographic report from the Administration further makes clear that some Republican-controlled states have tried to sabotage the ability of Obamacare (“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act\u201d) to reduce the numbers of uninsureds. However, that Republican effect nationwide actually accounts for very little of Obama\u2019s failure to have lived up to his promise of \u201cUniversal Coverage,\u201d which (100% insureds) is something that all other industrialized nations (and some non-industrialized nations) already have.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Obama\u2019s plan (which was virtually identical to Hillary Clinton\u2019s and to John Edwards\u2019s) simply wasn\u2019t even designed so as to make universal insurance possible. He (and they) simply lied<\/span><\/a> to Democratic voters, in order to win the Party\u2019s nomination. <\/span><\/p>\n

Voters were treated like suckers by all of the well-funded candidates. It was a lying-contest (just as the Republican campaigns were). And,\u00a0subsequently President Obama\u2019s Solicitor General presented an argument to the U.S. Supreme Court that political lying is protected speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, so that no state may legislate any restrictions against it. The Court ruled unanimously in favor of that view<\/span><\/a>\u00a0as constituting the Founders\u2019 conception of our \u2018democracy\u2019 \u2013 essentially dictating that \u2018democracy\u2019 should be a lying-contest (as if that\u2019s what our Founders had in mind). This is the view that liberals and conservatives \u2013 as represented by \u2018our\u2019 Government today \u2013 now hold about \u201cdemocracy.\u201d Essentially, they despise democracy, if they even think it\u2019s possible at all. However, regardless of whether democracy exists, it\u00a0certainly doesn\u2019t exist in the U.S.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(even though many people here who should know better continue to say that it does \u2013 but maybe they too endorse political lying). And here is\u00a0the best quickie-summary video on that study<\/span><\/a>, and it even explains why the U.S. has turned into a dictatorship. It shows how this transition, from a democracy into a dictatorship, results from the institutionalization of political lying \u2013 the type of thing that all of the well-funded candidates were engaging in during 2008. <\/span><\/p>\n

Lies control the U.S.; so, it\u2019s no longer a democracy; it\u2019s institutionalized rule by liars: truth-tellers can\u2019t even compete politically. That\u2019s the real reason why the United States still doesn\u2019t have what all other industrialized countries do: healthcare for all \u2013 basic essential healthcare as a right, instead of as a privilege that is accessible only to those who can afford it.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s the fuller story behind\u00a0“Uninsured Rate Falls to Lowest Since Obamacare Implementation.\u201d<\/span><\/a> Bloomberg\u2019s headline was intentionally misleading \u2013 fraudulent.<\/span><\/p>\n

The headline here, \u201cPercentage of Health-Uninsureds in U.S. Rises by 1.7%,\u201d using statements from the Obama Administration (which have at various times cited as the latest both the 16.3% CDC figure for 2014 and the 12.9% Gallup figure for March 2015<\/span><\/a>) might instead be (and without sacrificing basic honesty, and this would actually be the most likely true estimate<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n

Percentage of Health-Uninsureds Declines by 1.7% <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Since Obama First Promised to Eliminate It by 100%<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Not that it would make much difference, because even a 1.7% decline isn\u2019t anywhere near to being a 100% decline.<\/span><\/p>\n

In summary, then: Obama lies through his teeth; it\u2019s a fact, no mere charge by Republicans \u2013 who are just as much liars as he is. And the press play along by (like they did with \u201cSaddam\u2019s WMD\u201d in 2002 and 2003, propagandizing for an unnecessary multi-trillion-dollar ongoing catastrophe in Iraq) stenographically reporting deceptions by the government as if they weren\u2019t even intended to deceive the public. (\u201cOh, it\u2019s \u2018mistakes\u2019!\u201d) America\u2019s press aren\u2019t in the business of exposing the government\u2019s lies. America\u2019s press are instead in the business of transmitting the government\u2019s lies to the public. (And, then, politicians, if confronted later with their lies, might admit their \u2018mistakes\u2019 \u2013 as if a lie were instead a mistake \u2013 so, that\u2019s yet another lie from such a politician. They think that the American public are endless, irremediable, suckers, people who can never rationally learn from experience.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Or, in other words: However much trust Americans have in the government and the ruling establishment (including the nation\u2019s press), it\u2019s too much. (For example, this news report is being sent to them all; but if you\u2019ll google the headline here you\u2019ll see how many of them actually report it. One thing that virtually no major news-media report is the virtually total corruption of America\u2019s press, as propagandists for corporate-funded political parties. But that very corruption is my main topic. So, please spread this news-report to everyone you know. It\u2019s samizdat in the U.S., just like was so in the U.S.S.R. \u2013 it\u2019s merely exposing fascism, instead of exposing communism. Your friends should know about it, too.)<\/span><\/p>\n

———-<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0of \u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Obama First Promised to Lower It by 100% Eric Zuesse On 23 June 2015, Bloomberg news bannered\u00a0“Uninsured Rate Falls to Lowest Since Obamacare Implementation\u201d\u00a0and reported that, “Last year, 16.3 percent of adults under age 65, or about 31.7 million people, lacked medical coverage, according to a CDC survey published Tuesday. That\u2019s down from 20.4 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":161982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[115,30,96,853,103,542,839,526,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-161981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-cover-up","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-health-news","14":"tag-lies","15":"tag-news-media","16":"tag-propaganda","17":"tag-usa-news","18":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}