Obama has pledged that health-care changes won’t add to the deficit. To accomplish that, he’s proposed getting about $600 billion by reducing tax deductions available to the wealthy, and by trimming Medicare payments to insurance companies.

That won’t be enough to cover the overhaul costs. Obama said this week he plans in the coming days to disclose more proposals for raising “additional sources of revenue.” In a letter last week to Senate Democrats drafting legislation he said he will be proposing between $200 billion and $300 billion in further Medicare and Medicaid cuts...

“We have a problem in not wanting to attract enough negative attention to the bill in terms of the pay-fors,” he said. “Let them get a good feel for the coverage.”

Why raise taxes? Can't the Treasury just print a cool quadrillion (in bearer bonds, to be unsuccessfully smuggled by vicious ninjas into Bern so that UBS can pretend to be buying up long-dated maturities for its own account) and that will be that. Timmy has already stocked up on enough paper to run the printers at turbo for a good 4 years (and even accounted for the occassional PC Load Letter error) and Ben has bought every single available Port-A-Potty (Citi, BofA, Regions Financial) in which to flush all the little green pieces of paper that he buys from Timmy.

Additionally as Obama has pretty much staked his political career on only raising the taxes of those who make over $250,000 per year. That's what - 4, maybe 5 million Americans? So, $600 billion divided by 5 million, that makes... oh, about $120,000 in tax increases per person.

Silver lining - a definite stock recommendation: buy the airlines (preferrably in the next five minutes before Goldman runs oil to over $100 and Delta files for Chapter 44 or whatever iterration of the bankruptcy process they are at now) as sales for one way tickets out of the US skyrocket.

11 days after I was born, my father paid $155.35 to Salem Hospital, $150 to a Dr. Haywood for the delivery and $20 to Richardson Associates for anesthesia. General Electric, my father’s employer at the time, kicked in $100. I presume the bill was paid in full and that all parties were satisfied with the outcome.

When I was four years old, there was a return visit to Salem Hospital to treat a cut lip. For that my father paid $3.00.

Now fast-forward to June 5, 2008, just over one year ago. It was a quiet Thursday afternoon. My wife called me saying she had accidentally sliced her thumb with a utility knife and wondered whether she should go to the hospital to have it treated or just disinfect it and put a bandage on it.

I reasoned that on a quiet weekday afternoon, the hospital would be well staffed and we could be in and out fairly quickly, so off we went to Salem Hospital, where after filling out forms and answering questions–including, “Was it an accident?”–we spent a lot of time waiting in the so-called “Fast-Track” room. Eventually, a doctor showed up, and proceeded to apply Super-Glue (cyanoacrylate) to the wound, which was still seeping blood at a healthy rate. The whole site still looked a mess to me, but he wrapped the thumb in a big bandage and sent us on our way, saying the bandage could be removed in a few days.

Days later, we followed instructions, and were not entirely surprised to find, after removing the bandage, that the wound began bleeding again. Perhaps the surface had not been dry enough for the Super-Glue; perhaps the wound was too deep. I don’t know.

At that point, we had no appetite for a return visit to the hospital, which might entail not only a near-guaranteed wait but also a question about whether my wife had purposefully reopened the wound … so we disinfected and re-bandaged right at home. A few days later her thumb was fine.

And then, a month after the accident, the bill arrived. Now just for fun, make your own guess here. One emergency room, one doctor, a tube of Super Glue (apparently the exact same stuff you can buy at CVS but tailored for doctors), and basic bandaging materials. How much could it cost?

The answer is below.

A little farther …

A little farther …

The cost was $840.

Add the numbers up and you get 38 million. That leaves 9 million without coverage (although they really do have coverage since the federal government, along with the states, administer medicaid and charity care).

So the real number of uninsured is 8-10 million. There are 300 million Americans.