The Road to Single-Payer: Record High 26.3% of Americans Already Have Government-Run Health Care

Years before its full implementation, Obamacare has already had quite an impact: it has forced companies to terminate retiree health care benefits; it has pushed health insurers out of the business; and monthly premiums are skyrocketing.

Bottom line: if you like your current health care plan, too freaking bad, peon. The Democrats are on the way to single-payer with their top-down, Soviet-style health care 'law' passed during the dead of night in the form of a 2,600-page monstrosity that no one bothered to read.

More American adults reported having government healthcare -- Medicare, Medicaid, or military/veterans' benefits -- in September (26.3%) than in any previous month since Gallup and Healthways began tracking it in January 2008, at which time the figure stood at 22.5%.


The increase in government insurance partially offsets the decline in employer-based insurance seen since January 2008 -- a decline that started in the fall of 2008 as the financial crisis exploded and large-scale layoffs began. The 45.4% of adults who reported they had employer-based coverage in September is statistically unchanged from the summer months, but down from earlier this year, and significantly lower than the 50% who said the same in January 2008.

The percentage of Americans without health insurance was 16.1% last month, about on par with the 16.6% in August, but still higher than the 14.8% in January 2008.

Oh, Melvin: he's so historic.