MSNBC reports that the estimated 48 million people without health insurance are a burden to us all.

Health insurance premiums will cost families and employers an extra $922 on average this year to cover the costs of caring for the uninsured, according to a report released Wednesday...

Families USA says its study shows the problem is not restricted to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans.

Rather, the problem affects everyone, because the insured subsidize the cost of care given the uninsured. Most economists agree that some amount of subsidizing occurs, but the question has been how much.

But I thought these people went without health care. I thought they had to choose between eating dog food or getting medicine. Now I find out that they are receiving health care and that we are already paying for them.

So, if we are already paying for them, why the big push for socialized medicine? Why the big push to insure the uninsured if they are already receiving health care that the rest of us are paying for? It's true the managed care is cheaper than emergency care and that putting more people on the insurance rolls would keep them out of the emergency room for a non-emergency.

But it seems to me that you would get higher dividends by keeping non-taxpayers (like illegal aliens) out of the country and thus out of our health care system completely.