Real People in Real Trouble

St. Petersburg Times:

A growing number of Americans who are 50 to 64 are losing their health insurance, casualties of rising unemployment and the increasing number of businesses that can't afford to cover their workers.The AARP estimates more than 7 million people in this age group are uninsured, a number that is rising fast and adding a new dimension to the national health care debate.
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The newly uninsured who try to get coverage on their own are learning that it's often unaffordable at best, and virtually unavailable at worst.
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Studies have shown that uninsured people are more likely to put off necessary treatments than people who are insured, and that can lead to declining health for them and higher public costs in the long run.

A new Harvard study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that people with intermittent or no health insurance end up costing Medicare $1,000 more per year when they turn 65 than those who had coverage all along.

And that's if they even reach Medicare age. Another Harvard study, published in the policy journal Health Affairs, found that the risk of death among uninsured people age 50-64 is 43 percent higher than it is for people with coverage.