Undeterred by reports of long waits and suffering in countries where nationalized health insurance has been implemented, the advocates of government-run medicine point to 45 million Americans without health insurance as proof that the market has failed and that government-run medicine is the answer.
However, the so-called "crisis of the uninsured" is anything but. As shown in this short film Uninsured in America, the vast majority of the uninsured are people who choose to go without coverage. Seventeen million of the uninsured reside in households making more than $50,000 a year. Fourteen million people without coverage are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP, but haven't signed up. Throw in millions of illegal immigrants who don't buy insurance and millions of people who are uninsured only for short periods of time and we've got a non-crisis of politically exaggerated proportions. Moreover, millions of people who are unwilling to pay for their own medical care have figured out that it's free-for-the-taking at any hospital emergency room.
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