News

News Flash: Memory Shop and Anime Zakka to Open in Harvard Square

News

Harvard Researchers Develop AI-Driven Framework To Study Social Interactions, A Step Forward for Autism Research

News

Harvard Innovation Labs Announces 25 President’s Innovation Challenge Finalists

News

Graduate Student Council To Vote on Meeting Attendance Policy

News

Pop Hits and Politics: At Yardfest, Students Dance to Bedingfield and a Student Band Condemns Trump

Letters

LETTER

Prejudice Against Catholics

By Christopher B. Lacaria

To the editors:

The Dec. 14th opinion piece “Make Like a Democrat,” cites a figure of 47 million uninsured Americans. This oft-quoted statistic is actually a gross overestimation of the problem—recent research suggests that the number of Americans who cannot currently afford health insurance is much lower.

A new study by Dr. June O’Neill, who served as Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1995-1999, shows that nearly half of those uninsured Americans could likely afford to purchase health coverage. The average “voluntarily uninsured” household makes $65,000 per year.

We should not rush into the creation of a new, expensive healthcare system without a better understanding of the uninsured population. As long as we continue basing our arguments on inaccurate numbers, it’s hard to see how we can make effective policy decisions.

Kristen L. Eastlick is a Senior Economic Analyst at the Employment Policies Institute in Washington, D.C.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags
Letters