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Only 473 years left until Floridians get health insurance

Jun 26, 2009

By Dan

There is a lot of debate about the federal health care plan that is taking shape in the Congress. Many folks who recoil from a “public option” (like Medicare) suggest we can simply rely on the market to take care of our uninsured. I think it only fair that we respond with the facts as they are presented in our own state of Florida. Presently, Florida has 3.8 million of its residents without health insurance, including 800,000 children. Only one state has a higher rate of uninsured. On January 5, 2009, the Governor and the Legislature rolled out the “Cover Florida” plan which was intended to address this crisis by soliciting private health care plans that would cover less benefits and, therefore, because they were cheaper to buy, cover more people. So assuming we stick with the current “market-based” system and refuse to adopt the plans that are being considered in Washington, when can Floridians expect health care for our citizens?

Here is the analysis. After 146 days, 3,226 Floridians have enrolled in the Cover Florida plan (about 22 per day). Although math was never my specialty, one of my FCAT trained friends quickly calculated that at the current rate of enrollment it will take only 172,727.27 days or 473 years for Cover Florida to enroll the remainder of Florida’s uninsured.

For those of you who want to begin preparing for the health care coverage party that the legislature will sponsor when Florida’s current plan reaches 100% coverage, that date would be…..Monday, April 27^th 2482.

Right on, Dan.

Dan,The question I want to ask members of congress who object to a public plan is: "Are you covered by the public plan for members of congress? If you are, you should decline it and buy your insurance from a private company as an individual! Then you can object to the public option."Joseph Huberman

There are only two ways to cover everyone. One is to go to a single payer model. The other is to have a mandate that everyone buy private coverage and prevent the private entities from dropping people for any reason. Canada and the UK show that the first way leads to pets getting higher quality and more prompt care than humans. Germany is having success with the second way. France is kind of a hybrid, but more like Germany than England. Their health system is responsive. That is the way to go. All that a 'public option' will do is bring us closer to Canada and the UK. We need government mandates and regulation but not participation. We need individual coverage to be treated the same as employer-based coverage for tax purposes. We need Ron Wyden's Healthy Americans Act. Now. Thank you Dan.