Then, another portion of uninsured Americans already qualify for existing government health insurance programs -- and government already controls 46 percent of spending on health care -- for which they have not signed up.

The CBO estimates that as many as 15 percent of the chronically uninsured are already eligible for help. The Urban Institute (hardly an advocate of free market fundamentalism) found that 25 percent of the uninsured qualify for some program.

Surely, most citizens would concur that health care is too expensive (though most citizens likely would concur that everything is too expensive) and something should be done. So when President Obama tells us that 46 million Americans are uninsured, he is implying that 46 million people can't afford health insurance. That, too, is absurd.

In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research called "Is Health Insurance Affordable for the Uninsured?," Stanford economists say, "Based on a plausible range of definitions and assumptions … health insurance is affordable for between one quarter and three quarters of adults who are not insured."

Turns out that 8.4 million uninsured Americans are making $50,000 to $74,999, and 9.1 million more are making more than $75,000. Health insurance is just incompatible with their lifestyles, I guess.

There are obviously inconveniences -- children and mortgages, for instance -- that quickly can make $50,000 seem like a pittance. Then again, 27 percent of all adults in their 20s (many, I presume, without offspring) choose not to have health insurance. Many of them surely have the means to purchase insurance but after meticulously considering the trade-offs (imbibing or insuring?) say no thanks.

These facts do not undermine the argument for nationalized health care. (History and common sense do that already.) They do, however, point out that many statistics, to quote Huff again, get by "only because the magic of numbers brings about a suspension of common sense."