I’ve always suspected that something wasn’t right about the media’s reporting on the number of people who would “lose” health insurance if the disastrous ObamaCare program isn’t repealed. And now we know for sure.

The number, pulled from an “analysis” of the various repeal options by the liberal Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is around 22 million.  Sounds like a lot of people, right?  Cataclysmic, even!

But absolute, total, unadulterated BS.

The truth is, 16 million of those 22 million who would allegedly be “kicked off” health insurance are people who didn’t want to pay for health insurance in the first place.

That’s right, three-quarters of the people who CBO and the fake news media (and liberal Republicans) claim would “lose” their health insurance only have health insurance now because the government will nail them with a huge monetary penalty on their tax returns if they don’t buy it.

That includes 87,780 households – based on the most recent figures compiled by Americans for Tax Reform – in my home state of Nevada that paid the ObamaCare tax penalty rather than buy health insurance.

As columnist Avik Roy recently wrote at Forbes.com…

The idea that Americans should be forced by the government to buy a private product, merely for the offense of being alive, is seen by all conservatives as a constitutional injury.

And there’s a more fundamental question: if Obamacare’s insurance is so wonderful, why do millions of Americans need to be forced to buy it? By definition, you haven’t been ‘kicked off’ your insurance if the only reason you’re no longer buying it is that the government has stopped fining you.

So when you hear the Democrats and the fake news media claim that “22 million people” will lose health care insurance if ObamaCare is repealed, what that really means is that 16 million will be liberated from a government mandate to buy something they don’t want to buy.

As for the rest who will supposedly “lose” health care coverage under the Senate GOP plan, Mr. Roy write:

The GOP Senate health reform bill does repeal Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. But it replaces it with a robust system of tax credits and block grants that ensure that every single person enrolled in that Medicaid expansion will get financial assistance to afford private coverage.

So there is no reason – NO REASON! – for any – ANY – Senate Republican to vote against anObamaCare repeal bill.  This is absolutely the last chance to uproot ObamaCare before it becomes set in stone.  Any Republican who votes against repeal should be ousted from office, even if it means Democrats regain the majority in 2018.

Let’s face it, if Republicans can’t fulfill this seven-years-in-the-making campaign promise, they don’t deserve their majority anyway.  Use it or lose it.