Breaking Down The Uninsured

Floor Speech

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, earlier today, and in the many days before, we heard our colleagues talk over and over and over again about how we have so many people in this country who do not have access to health care. That's not accurate. They have access to health care. What they're talking about is people who are uninsured.

But let me talk about the numbers that make up what they're talking about as 45.7 million Americans who are uninsured. That's not true either; 9.5 million of those are noncitizens; 12 million of them are eligible for public programs such as Medicaid and Medicare; 7.3 million have incomes over $84,000 and choose not to purchase health insurance; and 9.1 million are only temporarily uninsured. That brings us down to 7.8 million American citizens, lower income, long-term uninsured, a much different figure from the 45 million they tout all the time. And a preliminary report by CBO says that they want to spend $1 trillion on this.

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