Critical Condition on National Review Online

Critical Condition on National Review Online:
Jeff makes an excellent point about CBO inflating the number of the uninsured, thus making it harder to solve the access problem. Even President Obama has backed away from the 46 million figure. In his Joint Session of Congress address in September, he said that there “are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage,” thereby reducing the challenge before us by one-third.



"Part of the story about who would feel the payroll tax on employers contained in the House-passed health care bill has gone missing. The media coverage I've seen and the Congressional rhetoric I've heard focuses on the small business lead by an entrepreneur who started the company. That's part of the story, but it isn't the whole story. The Joint Tax Committee's 'technical explanation' makes clear that this is a tax on all employers, both for-profit and not-for-profit. (See the discussion that starts on page 31, under the opaque title 'Responsibilities of Nonelecting Employers'.)

A lot of non-profits do not offer health insurance. They are at risk of paying the 8% payroll tax. Data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) shows 36 percent of non-profits do not offer health insurance. With a universe of 534,554 non-profits in the MEPS survey, that says about 200,000 do not offer coverage."