gordon.coale
 
Home
 


Weblog Archives

   
 
  Saturday  September 30  2006    11: 33 AM

health care

If America's So Great, Where's Our Health Care?
Lack of health insurance kills six times as many Americans each year as 9/11 did.


For Joel Segal, it was the day he was kicked out of George Washington Hospital, still on an IV after knee surgery, without insurance, and with $100,000 in medical debt. For Kiki Peppard, it was having to postpone needed surgery until she could find a job with insurance -- it took her two years. People all over the United States are waking up to the fact that our system of providing health care is a disaster.

An estimated 50 million Americans lack medical insurance, and a similar and rapidly growing number are underinsured. The uninsured are excluded from services, charged more for services, and die when medical care could save them -- an estimated 18,000 die each year because they lack medical coverage.

[more]