What would John Adams think about health care?

As a recent White House blog post notes, John Adams famously said, "facts are stubborn things." I know Adams championed public education in Massachusetts, but I wonder what he would think of a "public option" in these multi-faceted days.

Here are some stubborn facts that cut both ways in the health care debate:

1. 83 million Americans had government-sponsored health insurance in 2007 (Medicaid, Medicare, or military), according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Out of nearly 300 million people in the survey, that amounts to more than 1 in 4 Americans.

2. From 2010 to 2030, the number of people on Medicare is projected to rise from 46 million to 79 million, while the ratio of workers per beneficiary is expected to decline from 3.7 to 2.4. Medicare is funded primarily by payroll tax and "general revenues," i.e. printing money. Deficits will balloon, making Medicare insolvent in as little as 8 years by some projections.

The new health care proposals are different than Medicare, which is essentially a single-payer system. They are also different from Medicaid, which apparently is mostly run by the states. The military system includes government-run insurance and separate hospital and other medical facilities.

Here is another White House website devoted to providing facts with a certain slant on the health care debate.