How bad is the health care crisis in America? What can be done to fix it? Are you one of the growing number of uninsured? Could you become one? How can the richest country in the world be allowing this crisis to continue?

It's not just the poor and unemployed that are living without health insurance...it could happen to any of us. You can see a map showing the percentage of uninsured in each state at Informed Voters (my political blog).

Personally, I think the introduction of HMOs in the 80's, marked the beginning of this problem. Not that the concept of HMOs isn't great, it's the increased power that the insurance companies have gained with HMO's that is the problem. The insurance companies have systematically taken power away from doctors, hospitals, and patients...and given it to themselves. What they do with this new-found power is make money for shareholders, with little regard to anything (or anyone) else.

Here is one woman's experience with finding herself uninsured...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Volunteer firefighter Cindy Holland has no medical insurance, and her husband's health benefits as a full-time paramedic do not extend to family members, so she and their three children go without.

The hard-working Northern California family makes too much money to qualify for public health insurance but too little to afford a private policy, caught in a Catch 22 that puts many U.S. workers at risk of financial ruin. -- read full article

When Cindy, 36, shopped for coverage for herself and their children, she found it would cost about $1,000 a month, excluding dental insurance.

“It would kill us financially to do the insurance — if we want to keep a roof over our head and food in my kids. You end up rolling the dice,” said Cindy, a California native who works a pair of part-time jobs on top of firefighting.

As a two-parent family, the Hollands could earn just over $60,000 and still be eligible for Healthy Families, a children’s health insurance program financed by state and federal funds.

But that would require John to stop working overtime, which he does in order to pay old medical bills and other expenses.

Meanwhile, Cindy wrestles with the idea of applying for public benefits. -- read full article

Some of the facts...

Uninsured, national — 46.8 million (15.9% of the population), 2005, up from 45.3 million in 2004. Hispanics highest rate of uninsured – 32.7%; African-Americans, 19.6%; Asians, 17.9%; whites, 15%; children, 11.2%; middle-income ($50k–$75k), 14.1%; work full-time, 17.7% (U.S. Census Bureau). 82 million, or one in three non-elderly Americans, went without health insurance during 2003–2004 (Washington Post, Dec. 13, 2006).

Lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year (Institute of Medicine, January 14, 2004), the equivalent of six times the number who died in 9/11. (Louisville Courier-Journal, Jan. 30, 2006) -- read more

More facts...

One-fifth of all Americans, 48.8 million individuals, were in families spending more than 10% of their family income on healthcare in 2003, an increase of 11.7 million persons since 1996. Of these, 18.7 million (7.3%) were spending more than 20% of family income, a figure normally associated with home ownership. The percent of middle-income Americans (22.7%) spending over 10% of their income on healthcare was almost identical to the percent of low-income Americans (23.7%) on healthcare (JAMA, Dec. 13, 2006). -- read more

From 2000 to 2005, health insurance premiums rose by 73%, compared to an aggregate increase in workers’ income of just 15%. (Chicago Tribune, Jan. 31, 2006) Premiums rose three times faster than wages and inflation in 2005 (UC Berkeley Center for Labor research and Education, Dec. 2006).

Surfing around a bit on BlogHer, I found some interesting posts on this subject.

Jori Des Jardens wrote two great posts on the topic of the uninsured, both with many interesting comments. Why Your Should Be Grateful for That Tedious, White Color Job - and Do We Work To Like? Or Work For Health Insurance?

Here is a link to a BlogHer forum discussion on dealing with being uninsured.

Morra Aarons a BlogHer Contributing Editor wrote on "Our Broken Health Care System" back in Janurary

What are the presidential candidates saying they will do to solve this growing heath care crisis, if elected?

You can check out ExpertVoter.org (a Video Guide to the 2008 Presidential Candidates) to see what each of the candidates are proposing for all the major issues facing our country, including health care.

Here is an article about what Hilary Clinton would do.

What do you think about all of this? Are you concerned? Are you already being affected by this crisis? Do you think a particular presidential candidate has the best plans for correcting this problem? Will the issue of Health Care be important to you at the polls in 2008?

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at Women 4 Hope and CatherineBlogs.com