Americans Support Universal Health Coverage, But Not If It Covers Illegal Immigrants

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Eighty percent (80%) of U.S. voters oppose providing government health care coverage for illegal immigrants as part of the health care reform package that is working its way through Congress.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 11% disagree and think coverage for illegals is a good idea.
Most voters also oppose making health insurance mandatory for all Americans.

Still, two-thirds (65%) believe that every single American should have access to quality health care. Twenty-two percent (22%) disagree, and 12% are not sure. These numbers remain largely unchanged since President Obama first proposed such coverage earlier this year.

Rasmussen Reports: The Most Comprehensive Public Opinion Data Anywhere

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The Congressional Budget Office has tried crunching the numbers on Barack Obama’s plan to reform health care, which Obama says will save money and protect the uninsured. The CBO director on his official blog says, “Wrong!” — on both counts. The reform plan will cost more than a trillion dollars over the next decade, and while it will put 39 million people on insurance plans, it will drive off more than 23 million more from their existing plans. The cost doesn’t include Obama’s public plan option, either:

According to our preliminary assessment, enacting the proposal would result in a net increase in federal budget deficits of about $1.0 trillion over the 2010-2019 period. When fully implemented, about 39 million individuals would obtain coverage through the new insurance exchanges. At the same time, the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million (or roughly 10 percent), and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million, so the net decrease in the number of people uninsured would be about 16 million or 17 million.
These new figures do not represent a formal or complete cost estimate for the draft legislation, for several reasons. The estimates provided do not address the entire bill—only the major provisions related to health insurance coverage. Some details have not been estimated yet, and the draft legislation has not been fully reviewed. Also, because expanded eligibility for the Medicaid program may be added at a later date, those figures are not likely to represent the impact that more comprehensive proposals—which might include a significant expansion of Medicaid or other options for subsidizing coverage for those with income below 150 percent of the federal poverty level—would have both on the federal budget and on the extent of insurance coverage.

Hot Air Blog Archive CBO: ObamaCare will cost $1T, still leaves 30 million uninsured