Dear Sir or Ma'am,

How is the Obama administration (or anyone else for that matter) going to save the US taxpayer money by creating so-called "Universal Healthcare"? Considering the following facts:

The Myth of the 46 Million
First off, Did You Know?
That of the number of “uninsured” that is constantly discussed in the media of 46mln that
14mln of them are already covered under a government program but may have not signed up
----10mln of them make over $75k and thus can afford a private plan but chose not too
----22% of all uninsured are NOT Americans citizens at all; even higher in major cities;
----60% of the uninsured in San Francisco aren’t even Americans
----18.3mln or 40% of the uninsured are under 34 so they may have simply made their own cost/benefit analysis and determined the best course for them is to not buy health insurance.
To be clear, the statistic is not pulled out of thin air. It comes from an annual report by the Census Bureau, which most recently pegged the number of uninsured at 45.7 million for 2007. But the problem lies in the way the statistic is commonly cited and understood.
Just a quick look inside the Census Bureau data shows that 9.7 million of the uninsured are not citizens of the United States.

How many people actually spend the whole year without health insurance? It's difficult to say, and recent data is hard to come by. But in 2003, the Congressional Budget Office took a stab at answering the question, and looked at two studies from 1998 that conducted interviews multiple times over the course of the survey period. One study pegged the number of people who were uninsured for the entire year at 31 million, while another put it even lower, at 21 million. In either case, the number was significantly lower than it was in 1998's Current Population Survey, which found 43.9 million uninsured.
Another problem with citing the 46-million figure is that many of those who are identified as uninsured are actually eligible for existing government program but simply never bothered to enroll. In 2003, a BlueCross BlueShield Association study estimated that about 14 million of the uninsured were eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP. These people would be signed up for government insurance if they ever made it to the emergency room.
In addition, some of the 46 million could theoretically afford health coverage, but chose not to purchase any. In 2007, 17.6 million of the uninsured had annual incomes of more than $50,000 and 9.1 million earned more than $75,000.
The Census figures also show that 18.3 million of the uninsured were under 34. Some in this age group may have simply determined that they are young and healthy and thus can do without coverage.
When all of these factors are put together, the 2003 BlueCross BlueShield study determined that 8.2 million (18% of the often used 46mln) Americans are actually without coverage for the long haul, because they are too poor to purchase health care but earn too much to qualify for government assistance. Even being without insurance still doesn't mean they won't have access to care, because federal law forbids hospitals from denying treatment to patients who show up at the emergency room.
Did You Know?
Despite ever-increasing healthcare costs and widespread dissatisfaction with the U.S. healthcare system, a majority of Americans remain satisfied with what they pay for their own healthcare, the quality of the healthcare they receive, and their healthcare coverage. Gallup's annual Healthcare survey, conducted Nov. 11-14, finds 57% of Americans saying they are satisfied with the total cost they pay for their healthcare, while 39% are dissatisfied. These percentages have been quite stable in recent years, after a slight dip in reported satisfaction between 2001 (64%) and 2002 (58%).

America's first Muslim president?
Obama aligns with the policies of Shariah-adherents
During his White House years, William Jefferson Clinton -- someone Judge Sonia Sotomayor might call a "white male" -- was dubbed "America's first black president" by a black admirer. Applying the standard of identity politics and pandering to a special interest that earned Mr. Clinton that distinction, Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America's first Muslim president.

This is not to say, necessarily, that Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim any more than Mr. Clinton actually is black. After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.

What little we know about Mr. Obama's youth certainly suggests that he not only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years as one in Indonesia. As the president likes to say, "much has been made" -- in this case by him and his campaign handlers -- of the fact that he became a Christian as an adult in Chicago, under the now-notorious Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright.

With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim world" (hereafter known as "the Speech"), there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself. Consider the following indicators:

• Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to "the Holy Koran." Non-Muslims -- even pandering ones -- generally don't use that Islamic formulation.

• Mr. Obama established his firsthand knowledge of Islam (albeit without mentioning his reported upbringing in the faith) with the statement, "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed." Again, "revealed" is a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction that the Koran is the word of God, as dictated to Muhammad.

• Then the president made a statement no believing Christian -- certainly not one versed, as he professes to be, in the ways of Islam -- would ever make. In the context of what he euphemistically called the "situation between Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs," Mr. Obama said he looked forward to the day ". . . when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."

Now, the term "peace be upon them" is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men. According to Islam, that is what all three were - dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God.

In the final analysis, it may be beside the point whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim. In the Speech and elsewhere, he has aligned himself with adherents to what authoritative Islam calls Shariah -- notably, the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood -- to a degree that makes Mr. Clinton's fabled affinity for blacks pale by comparison.

For example, Mr. Obama has -- from literally his inaugural address onward -- inflated the numbers and, in that way and others, exaggerated the contemporary and historical importance of Muslim-Americans in the United States. In the Speech, he used the Brotherhood's estimates of "nearly 7 million Muslims" in this country, at least twice the estimates from other, more reputable sources. (Who knows? By the time Mr. Obama's friends in the radical Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) perpetrate their trademark books-cooking as deputy 2010 census takers, the official count may well claim considerably morethan 7 million Muslims are living here.)

Even more troubling were the commitments the president made in Cairo to promote Islam in America. For instance, he declared: "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." He vowed to ensure that women can cover their heads, including, presumably, when having their photographs taken for passports, driver's licenses or other identification purposes. He also pledged to enable Muslims to engage in zakat, their faith's requirement for tithing, even though four of the eight types of charity called for by Shariah can be associated with terrorism. Not surprisingly, a number of Islamic "charities" in this country have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.

Particularly worrying is the realignment Mr. Obama has announced in U.S. policy toward Israel. While he pays lip service to the "unbreakable" bond between America and the Jewish state, the president has unmistakably signaled that he intends to compel the Israelis to make territorial and other strategic concessions to Palestinians to achieve the hallowed two-state solution. In doing so, he ignores the inconvenient fact that both the Brotherhood's Hamas and Abu Mazen's Fatah remain determined to achieve a one-state solution, whereby the Jews will be driven "into the sea."

Whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim or simply plays one in the presidency may, in the end, be irrelevant. What is alarming is that in aligning himself and his policies with those of Shariah-adherents such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the president will greatly intensify the already enormous pressure on peaceful, tolerant American Muslims to submit to such forces - and heighten expectations, here and abroad, that the rest of us will do so as well.