Priceless Author Asks Why People Aren't Signing Up for Medicaid

John Goodman on the disconnect in the health care reform discussion:

Consider this:

· About one in every four individuals who are eligible for Medicaid in this country has not bothered to enroll.
· About one in five employees who are offered employer-provided health insurance turns it down; among workers under 30 years of age, the refusal rate is almost one in three.

Think about that for a moment.

Millions of people are turning down (Medicaid) health insurance, even though it’s free! Millions of others are turning down their employers’ offers. Since employees pay about 27% of the cost of their health insurance, on the average, millions of workers are passing up the opportunity to buy health insurance for 27 cents on the dollar.

You almost never read statistics like these in the mainstream media. Why? Because they completely undermine health policy orthodoxy: the belief that health insurance (even Medicaid) is economically very valuable, that it improves health and saves lives, and that the main reason why people don’t have it is that they can’t afford it.

Welcome to the huge disconnect in health reform.

Why The White House is Panicking About Obamacare || Forbes

Ron Paul says corporate medicine not much better than socialized medicine - The Hill's Healthwatch

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) said the current healthcare system is overly corporate and not much better than a socialized healthcare system during a town hall in Meredith, New Hampshire on Sunday.

Paul, a physician, said he began practicing medicine in the 1950s before Medicare and Medicaid, so the government had a minimal role in the healthcare system. He said that since President Lyndon Johnson introduced the idea of a federal role in healthcare costs have skyrocketed and the system has become controlled by corporations instead of the government.

Ron Paul says corporate medicine not much better than socialized medicine - The Hill's Healthwatch

Bizarro Land: Double Counting for Obamacare and Medicare

This is really classic.

The HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the truth about how Medicare and Obamacare is being funded.

Read it all here.