Absolutely not. Do not shut up — ever.

I’ve spent way too many years digging into data and statistics to argue over one number — let alone 66 of them. Instead of arguing percentages, tell me what would persuade you to personally concern yourself with other people’s health insurance issues?

For me, mapping data and statistics persuaded me. By mapping, I mean that literally. Working with a forensic accountant from KPMG, we took hard numbers from the U.S. census data and put them on a map. The patterns that emerged were as predictable as the sun.

In every American community (town, city, or rural landscape) pockets of poverty are chock full of health problems barely seen in any other community sector. In essence, the quality of our health is locked in to where you live (what I call location-based health).

We designed our health care system on the assumption that not every American could afford to use it. Even if every American had gold plated health insurance tomorrow, there are not nearly enough doctors, hospitals, clinics, labs, etc. to serve them. That is the reason, Umair is probably very close to right (with his 66% citation).

Let’s say you are wealthy and heavily insured and build a vacation home, work from home home, a second home or retirement home in a gorgeous mountain valley. If you have a heart attack at home, chances are you will die. You will die because there are NO medical facilities close enough to save your life. EMTs can stabilize you, but not much more.

I know a wealthy man who fell and landed on a stick and was transported to a trauma center by helicopter. His wealth could buy him a helicopter, but it could not buy him the extra 19 minutes of time he needed to reach that trauma center. If there had been an emergency room in his community, he would still be alive. But there was no emergency room near enough to help him because more poor people live in beautiful mountain valleys than rich people. Umair made the mistake of characterizing this issue as food or medicine. The issue is access (and the lack of anything to access).

You have to have a whole lot of workers who have employer provided group health insurance to support a good healthcare system close enough to serve you and your family. Without a large and heavily insured workforce, no community can afford a healthcare system. This is also true in wealthy communities, because, you see, wealthy people are healthy people and healthy people don’t need a doctor often enough to support a healthcare system. That’s the reason, you find lots of plastic surgeons and hospital facilities catering to plastic surgery in wealthy communities, but few, if any trauma centers.

IF — and please don’t hold your breath — we had national health insurance tomorrow, estimates say it would take 15 years for Americans to recover their health. Until then health care costs would skyrocket. But in 15 years, those costs would drop so fast, it would look like they were falling off a cliff. Healthier citizens is the reason, countries with national healthcare systems can afford it — and we cannot.