As if the end of summer weren't bad enough, we have the U.S. Census Bureau sending us off into the cool, dark days of autumn with a double dose of bad news.
After crunching their latest batch of numbers, the eggheads over at the Bureau told us last week the number of uninsured in American crept up to 50 million. The national poverty rate also jumped to a staggering15 percent.
(Hey, who says we're not a growth economy?)
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Now, we could spend the rest of the day arguing over the whys and wherefores of how we got here, but both nuggets of bad news can be tied directly to a malingering 10 percent unemployment rate.
(And, while we're at it, the 50 million figure could use a closer look. We've talked before about how the Bureau arrives at this figure, and I have some problems with it.)
But there's little doubt the number of uninsured is on the rise. But what concerns me is what this means for PPACA. All that fancy accounting can more or less go out the window now. You think reform was expensive last year? Wait until you see the bill in 2012.
This is the kind of harsh reality that often scuttles the best laid plan of mice and senators. And it's long been my biggest sticking point with this legislation.
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