"When millions of hard-working men and women do not have health insurance themselves and cannot cover their children, it raises serious clinical, economic and moral concerns about how we as a nation will meet the needs of our people."

(Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a New Jersey-based think tank focusing on health-care issues)

According to this Census report, the percentage of people covered by employment-based health insurance fell to 59.7%, from 60.2% in 2005.

The uninsured rate rose among the employed because fewer people are covered at work! The uninsured rate among all other rose because the cost of healthcare insurance has skyrocketed - rising much higher and faster than the inflation rate - and not keeping pace with wages.

1 out every 6 Americans are uninsured, whether working or not.

How can our consciences allow this terrible inequity to continue to persist in the most powerful, richest nation on earth?

Everybody should be in the health care system.

Can we envision a modern civilized society in any other way?

Job-based coverage is falling primarily because of the high cost of health care which has been rising faster than the economy has been growing.

Both employers and employees are having greater difficulty affording health insurance.

The main reasons that both children and adults have been losing ground in health insurance coverage is first a result of the erosion of employer-sponsored insurance and secondly an outcome of healthcare costs that are rising faster than inflation.

The way that health care is being delivered makes it increasingly unaffordable.

Our current "for-profit" health care system is failing us. The method of health care delivery in this country makes the health care system in this country simply unaffordable.

Both the number and the percentage of Americans who were uninsured were substantially higher last year than in the recession year of 2001. That year, 39.8 million people - 14.1 percent of Americans - were uninsured.

From this article in News-Leader (Springfield, Missouri), we find out that this is not just an east coast, west coast or urban problem. A growing population of people in America's heartland are also doing without lifesaving care:

What's most worrisome about Missouri is that our state's pace of creating uninsured people tripled the pace nationally. The nation's uninsured population increased by 5 percent, which is bad enough, but in Missouri, our number of uninsured increased by a whopping 16 percent...

But turning this trend around is going to take more serious legislative efforts.

This year, for instance, Missouri lawmakers reversed some of Blunt's devastating Medicaid cuts from 2005 -- the primary cause of our state's increase in uninsured population -- but they didn't provide the funding for the change.

That is an empty promise.

There are all sorts of models being talked about on the national level as strategies for improving our ailing health care system, and virtually all of them, whether they be supported by Democrats or Republicans, involve finding a way to reduce the number of uninsured, particularly children...

For the health of Missourians, and the health of the state, lawmakers, health care professionals and taxpayers need to unite in a simple goal: We need to reduce the number of uninsured Missourians. Unfortunately, we seem to be going the wrong way.

New research is confirming that insurance status often determines whether a person's cancer is diagnosed early or late. The research links a lack of insurance to delays in detecting malignancies. Undetected late stage diseases are more likely to lead to death.

A lack of insurance or "under insurance" is not simply an inconvenience. It is a real barrier to access and definitely contributes to poorer health.

Lack of insurance leads to death! In Alabama, as another example, the Montgomery Advisor provides some additional startling data, pointing out that uninsured babies in Alabama are more likely to die than those who pay cash for their care:

While no one should be surprised by the results, a new study by the Alabama Department of Public Health underscores that access to health insurance has a major impact on children in the state.

The analysis of Alabama birth data from 2005 shows that babies whose mothers paid for their deliveries themselves were more than three times as likely to die in their first year than those with private health insurance.

The "Method of Payment for Delivery" analysis showed statistical links between how a mother paid for an infant's delivery care and the child's life expectancy in its first year...

Babies whose mothers were self pay were the most likely to be born at low birth weight. Low birthweight babies also are more likely to suffer from a range of negative health consequences...

The study clearly shows the need to expand Medicaid coverage to more people. Currently Medicaid is available to mothers earning 133 percent of the federal poverty level, and the study's authors recommend expanding that to 175 percent or more. With the state already struggling to fund Medicaid at current levels, finding money to expand coverage would be a tough task. But clearly the need is there.

The Orlando Sentinel informs us that Florida has the 2nd highest percentage of uninsured citizens under the age of 65.

Nearly one of every four Floridians under age 65 - 3.6 million men, women and children - are uninsured. Florida trails only Texas in the percentage of non-elderly citizens without health insurance, according to the latest government data.

From President Bush's home state of Texas, Barbara Mosacchio, CEO for the YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas, and Julia Easley, director of advocacy, Children's Medical Center Dallas, and chair of the Dallas Area CHIP Coalition, offered an Op Ed, excerpted here:

Texas is No. 1 again based on a disturbing trend revealed by the Census Bureau last week. Our state ranks first in the nation in both the number and percentage of children from low-income families lacking health insurance...

Congress and President Bush hold the keys to reversing this alarming upward trend through reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP is a national program that provides affordable health coverage for children in low-income families who make too much to qualify for Medicaid...

CHIP must be renewed by Congress by Sept. 30. Strong bipartisan bills have been passed in both the House and Senate, calling for $47 billion and $35 billion, respectively, in new funding over five years. This would allow 4 million to 5 million additional uninsured children to be covered.

President Bush, however, has threatened to veto any bill that adds more than $5 billion to CHIP over the next five years. This would not even allow CHIP to cover the children now served, much less cover the millions of children who qualify but have continued to go uninsured because of existing shortfalls.

As this debate continues, children go back to school and continue to go uninsured. Children without health insurance are 25 percent more likely to miss school because of illnesses, and Texas school districts lose $4 million per day in funding because of absenteeism. When children lose CHIP and Medicaid coverage and end up in emergency rooms for care, health care costs increase for all of us.

CHIP works for kids, but only if it's funded at an appropriate level. The stage is set for Congress to pull together for a strong bipartisan compromise plan for CHIP reauthorization. As the number of uninsured children continues to rise, CHIP funding is vital to the health of our nation.

We encourage individuals to get involved by contacting their U.S. senators and representative and urging them to support a strong and well-funded, bipartisan plan for CHIP reauthorization. To find out who represents you in Congress, go to www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us.

It's particularly worth noting that both the number and the percentage of children who are uninsured increased for the second straight year in 2006 - to 8.7 million, or 11.7 percent, of all children. Almost 9% of all children in the U.S. are going without access to medical care.

Between 1998, when the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) started, and 2004, the number and percentage of uninsured children fell consistently, despite the erosion of employer-based coverage during that period, as more low-income children were enrolled in SCHIP and Medicaid.

This progress halted in 2005, however. Money was diverted from healthcare into other of priorities. For example, in 2006, this President and last year's Congress took $50 billion dollars away from Medicare and Medicaid in order to send hundreds of billions of tax-payer dollars to the occupation of Iraq.

Children's healthcare has been inadequately funded, leaving children without access to medical services. Over the past two years, the number and percentage of children who lack health insurance have risen; 1 million more children were uninsured in 2006 than in 2004.

Our children became victims of an economy that is increasing serving the rich while robbing the poor. An economy (and government) that values the funding of the apparent quagmire in Iraq over keeping our families healthy here at home.

And still, the White House has taken no constructive action to address the problem.

"The number of uninsured children fell when the federal government and states worked together to increase coverage for children under SCHIP and Medicaid," noted Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

"Now, progress has stalled and begun to reverse. Moreover, the Administration has announced a new policy that further weakens children's coverage under SCHIP by placing coverage of as many as several hundred thousand children at risk. The new Census data underscore the need for Congress to complete work on - and the President to sign - a strong SCHIP reauthorization bill before the program expires on September 30."

Unfortunately, President Bush is now poised to move in the wrong direction.

Instead of finding solutions for the millions of uninsured children, Bush continues with his threat of a Presidential veto of bill sent by Congress that would adequately fund children's healthcare.

The White House should stop playing politics with the healthcare of millions of children and help Congress in their efforts to reduce the number of uninsured.

We should fund the children's program and we should immediately begin to address the bigger problem - the decline of employer based healthcare, the rising costs of healthcare and the rising numbers of working families without access to medical services.

Since 2001, the percentage of Americans without insurance has trended upward and now equals a record high. The huge number of uninsured Americans now exceeds the cumulative population of 24 American states plus the District of Columbia.

Ultimately, we need a universal healthcare system in our country. In this way, we would be joining all of the other civilized and modern democracies of the world, including Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia, and all of the others.

At present, the U.S. is the only modern democracy that does not insure health care access for its citizens.

Henry Simmons, M.D, M.P.H., F.A.C.P., President of the National Coalition on Health Care issued this statement last week:

Unless we take the necessary actions to stem the rising tide of uninsured people, millions of Americans will be added to the ranks of the 47 million who have no health insurance coverage. The Census Bureau estimates on the uninsured are a year old and do not reflect that the number of people without coverage is likely to grow significantly worse due to rapidly rising health care costs and health insurance premiums. Escalating health insurance premiums are forcing more employers to eliminate their health coverage or pass on more of the costs to employees, making it more difficult for workers to pay for job-based coverage.

Moreover, the Census Bureau reports that the vast majority of people losing coverage are coming from middle-income families...

Affordable cost of continued inaction by our political leaders to reform our health care system will result in an even more vicious cycle of more uninsured Americans, higher health care costs and poorer quality of care. Making sure that all Americans have affordable health insurance is the right thing for the United States - and also is the key to controlling health care costs and improving the quality of care. Only comprehensive reform can solve our uninsured crisis.

Are we so callous that we can go about the day-to-day routines of our lives without taking action to bring 1 out of 6 of us back into our health care system?

In June 2007, Kaiser Health Security Watch, a research arm of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, published its annual survey results which measure American level of concerns about ability to access and pay for health care.

Every year since February 2004, the Kaiser Health Security Watch has asked several questions to compare Americans' health care worries to their worries about other possible problems.

They have consistently found that more Americans are worried about their health care costs than about losing their job, paying their rent or mortgage, losing money in the stock market, or being the victim of a terrorist attack. In June, about four in ten respondents report being very worried about their income not keeping up with rising prices (45%) and having to pay more for their health care or insurance (41%).

The 2007 Kaiser survey also marked a significant gap between the shares of people with and without insurance who worry about their health care. In June, 57% of those under age 65 without health insurance say they are very worried about their health care, compared with 35% of the non-elderly insured.

Over four in ten adults say they are very worried about their income not keeping up with rising prices (45%) and nearly as many say the same about having to pay more for their health care or health insurance (41%).

In the recent three years of tracking, income not keeping up with rising prices and having to pay more for health care and insurance have always been the top two worries.

Among health care worries, the public is most concerned about having to pay more for their health care or insurance, with about four in ten (41%) saying they are very worried.

Fewer, but still about one in three, say they are very worried about not being able to afford health care services (36%) or prescription drugs (33%), and declining quality of care (32%).

Among those who currently have health insurance coverage, about one-third (34%) say they are very worried about losing their health insurance coverage, and a similar share report being very worried that their health plan is more concerned about money than about what is best for them (31%).

In all 75% of Americans are worried about paying more for health care or health care insurance.

Why have we let it come to this? Do we have the heart, the political will and the personal determination to fix this?

With employers dropping their healthcare plans, with overall wages dropping and with an increasing percentage (one in every six) of Americans doing without healthcare, we must acquire universal healthcare in the U.S.

In America, no one should go without health care.

Universal health care is defined as guaranteeing access to quality and affordable health care for all persons living in the United States. Period.

Everybody should be in the health care system. Nobody should be out! How could it ever be right for anyone in our society to be unable to access medical services for themselves or their children?

High quality health care is a right, not a privilege. In a modern, civilized society, health care should be every citizen's right.

If you believe that today's health care system falls far short of the needs of our patients and communities; if you believe that significant health care reform is needed now; if you believe that we all must be active in the fight for universal health care; and if you want to make a difference in the movement to achieve health care for all, then take the next step and be active! Here are some ideas to consider:

• Take the "pledge" to make sure that this issue is addressed in upcoming elections. The Divided We Fail campaign has a pledge for people to take here.
• Invite a speaker from the Physicians for a National Health Program to speak to your church, community group, or organization
• Help those diagnosed with cancer find hope and inspiration by connecting them to support programs and with others who have been there
• Help make trained patient navigators available to help people get the care they need
• Insist that we make available increased funding for the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, which provides low-income, uninsured, and underinsured women access to mammograms and follow-up care, regardless of their ability to pay
• Support legislation that will provide free or low-cost colorectal cancer screening
• Contact your own legislators and tell them that you support single payer universal healthcare.
• Register to vote and please vote for candidates that are supportive of universal healthcare.
• Learn more about Canada's health system.
• Learn more about the uninsured in America.
• Learn more about single payer national health care.

If you want your own copy of the Census Bureau's report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance, you can download it here.

Cartoon above courtesy of Tom Tomorrow here. For other health care posts at Everyday Citizen, Larry James provided a blog about Dying in America: Lack of Access to Medical Care and Simone Davis asked Does It Matter? Can We Save Money, Time and Lives? Ally Klimkoski pointed out that the insurance industry is failing to provide adequate coverage for those who purchase plans, in her blog posting, We'll Just Take Your Arm.