News Flash: Medicare is a government program

In a poll earlier this month by Public Policy Polling, respondents were asked: "Do you think the government should stay out of Medicare?" 39% answered "Yes". Another 15% answered "Not Sure". So, 54% of the poll respondents (representative of voting age adults in the U.S.) do not understand that Medicare is a government program.

This is a rich irony of opponents' attempts to demonize government-run health systems like those in Canada and the U.K. We ALREADY HAVE one of the largest government health care systems in the world. Medicare currently covers 46 million people; Medicaid covers approximately another 40 million. Add to that 86 million the roughly 27 million veterans covered by the Veterans Administration and you have the U.S. government directly providing health care for more than 110 million people The entire population of Canada is 33 million. The population of the United Kingdom is 61 million. There are more people in government health care systems in the United States than in Canada and the UK combined.

The right argument is not whether we should have government health care in the United States. We have it. The argument is what form it should take and what portion of the population it should cover.