While the august men and women of Congress are on their August recess, perhaps having returned to their home states to rub elbows with those whom they ostensibly serve, I hope that they take due pause to consider how, with unsettling frequency, the most basic needs of their constituents remain unmet.
From HealthDay:
Underinsured Risking Debt to Pay Health Bills
One in four Americans with health insurance are still underinsured — meaning they are often using up their savings or turning to credit cards to cover medical expenses, according to a survey in the September Consumer Reports.
And overall, the survey of 37,000 people found, 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 have inadequate access to health care.
“Four out of 10 Americans can’t count on having health insurance when they need it,” said senior project editor Nancy Metcalf, the article’s author. “This includes people who don’t have health insurance, but also the 3-in-10 people whose health insurance is so bad or so costly to them that are having trouble accessing and paying for medical care.”
According to the report, 49 percent of all those surveyed, and 43 percent of those with insurance, said they were “somewhat” to “completely” unprepared for a costly medical emergency.
In addition, 16 percent of those surveyed said they had no health insurance. This included many whose jobs didn’t offer insurance or who couldn’t afford the premiums of deductibles of the available plan, Metcalf said.
This means that some 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 have inadequate access to health care. Most employers are struggling to keep their employees insured, even as large health insurance companies continue to reap huge profits, the report said.
The reason more people are seeing their health care coverage eroded includes rising costs, which have in turn raised deductibles, employee contributions and co-payments, Metcalf said.
“In 2005, we passed a milestone that no country should be proud of, which is that the average cost of a family plan in a workplace-based policy was more than a full-time employee making minimum wage gets in a year,” Metcalf said.
“Employers, too, are feeling the strain of rising costs. In 2000, the average employer contribution for a family plan was $135 a month; by 2006, the cost was $248,” Metcalf said. [full text]
Kmareka.com 
Some would say the worth of a nation can be measured by how it cares for the most vulnerable of its people: the young, the aged, the poor and the sick. We are not doing nearly as well as we can in any part of this list but we are especially deficient in providing for the care of those needing medical attention. Of course American medicine is by any measure the best in the world in terms of capabilities and technologies available to patients who can pay. It is in the “who can pay” part of the equation that America, as a modern technological culture, simply fail miserably. Not only is the cost of adequate medical insurance so expensive that many, many individuals must choose between other necessities or being insured, but the actual costs of treatment is unbearable by any measure. Instances of $10,000/day are not unusual for certain treatment options. When the possibile options are paying for treatment or no treatment and perhaps death, the realities of life crash in on American families. Unfortunately, no politician or political party has arrived at a workable solution, and the curent campaign mouthing of the usual rhetoric will not provide an answer. I suspect that a grassroots storm of protest from citizens operating in concert will be the only real start toward reform. But reform is badly needed, if we are to live up to our promise as a humane society, caring for its citizens.