Your little known factoid of the day

Your little known factoid of the day

by digby

Health care reform will extend health insurance to 14 million more people in 2014 and as many as 30 million people by 2022, according to the report. The report predicts 30 million people will remain uninsured in 2022, which is three million more than analysts projected before the Supreme Court ruling. By 2022, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program will have 11 million more enrollees and 25 million people will have coverage through the exchanges, the budget office says.

That will certainly be an improvement over the 50 million uninsured today, but I guess I'm a little bit stunned that these numbers will be so high even ten years from now. And I'm even more surprised that this is considered such a great success that people are already proposing to start dismantling Medicare because of it.

Apropos of nothing, a commenter on another blog (sorry, can't remember which) mentioned this and I thought it was telling:

Ailing Lindsay Is Given Posts To Get City Health Insurance
By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER
Published: May 03, 1996

Former Mayor John V. Lindsay, in declining health, has been appointed by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani to two city posts to make him eligible for municipal health insurance coverage and eventually, perhaps, to qualify him for a pension.

In recent years, strokes and Parkinson's disease have been described as eroding Mr. Lindsay's once-athletic physique and taking a severe toll on his finances.

Mr. Lindsay, now 74, was Mayor from 1966 to 1973, an eight-year span that left him seven years short of qualifying for a city pension under the rules then in effect, former Mayor Edward I. Koch said.

Yes, illness takes a severe toll on your finances. After all, you can't work.

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