Voluntary Takeover

As the insurance lobby and a number of Republicans in Congress warn of a government takeover of the health care system, it's interesting to note that a growing number of people are moving into public plans.

In 2008, an additional 4.4 million people were insured by the government compared with a year earlier for a total of 87.4 million, according to new Census Bureau data.

About 176 million people were insured through their employers last year, down a little more than 1 million from a year earlier.

Of course, you can see that some of this is due to people losing their insurance along with their jobs. And since the data is a year old, it doesn't reflect many of the workers who lost insurance because of job reductions that took place late last year and this year.

To be sure, the new Census figures will be used by advocates of expanding the government's role in providing coverage to the uninsured, a figure that rose moderately to 46.3 million last year.

"Had it not been for significant expansion in public health coverage, the number of people who are uninsured would have been enormously higher," Ron Pollack, executive director of consumer group Families USA, told the Wall Street Journal.