Our healthcare system is the best in the world - for people with lots of money. But for just about everyone else, the system leaves much to be desired. When you step back and compare our healthcare system to that of other industrialized nations, we're at the bottom. Of course the United States healthcare system produces many great practitioners and fabulous medical breakthroughs. But overall, it delivers poorer care to fewer people for more money than any other.
Children make up about a quarter of the uninsured.
Three out of four of the adults who are uninsured or were uninsured recently are in working families, according to a survey by the Commonwealth Fund. Not only is this inhumane, it ultimately hurts all of us. The uninsured go without needed care until their condition reaches the point of an expensive emergency. And in the end, we all absorb the cost. As long as insurance is tied to employment, a high percentage of Americans will go without coverage.