Sixty-one percent of the non-elderly population in the U.S. – or 159 million people – have health insurance provided by their employers.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
August 17, 2009
U.S. national health expenditures per capita are projected to be $13,100 in 2018. They were $2,814 per capita in 1990.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation/CMS
August 16, 2009
The 2008 monthly average enrollment in Medicare consisted of 37.5 million elderly and 7.3 million disabled persons.
Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
August 15, 2009
Medicare’s average monthly enrollment in 2008 was 44.8 million people.
Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Palin vs. Obama: Death Panels
Like many disagreements in the digital age, it all started with a post on Facebook. Last Friday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a note to her Facebook page and introduced a new term to the health care debate:
Palin, Aug. 7: The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide,
When Philosophy Meets Politics
We’ll wager that, unless you happen to be a practicing bioethicist, you’d never heard of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel six weeks ago. But now Emanuel, the director of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, finds himself labeled a "deadly doctor" by Betsy McCaughey in an opinion piece in the New York Post. And controversial conservative pundit Ann Coulter recently proclaimed that "Zeke Emanuel is on my death list."
We debunked McCaughey’s charges in an Ask FactCheck item we posted today.
‘Deadly Doctor’?
Q: Does Ezekiel Emanuel advocate sacrificing medical care for senior citizens and disabled youths for the good of society?
A: No. Critics of health care legislation are distorting the meaning of Emanuel’s academic writings on medical ethics. And Emanuel tells us, "I am not advocating this."
Seven Falsehoods About Health Care
So much for a slow news month. August feels like campaign season, with claims on health care coming at us daily. Does the House bill call for mandatory counseling on how to end seniors’ lives sooner? Absolutely not. Will the government be dictating to doctors how to treat their patients? No. Do the bills propose …
August 14, 2009
In 2008, 6.5 percent of the U.S. population failed to obtain needed medical care due to cost at some time during the year.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Private Insurance Not Outlawed
Q: Will the House’s proposed health care plan outlaw private insurance?
A: No. Those who are claiming that the plan would get rid of private insurance or make it illegal are misinterpreting the bill.