Studies show their health suffers and their lives are sometimes shortened. By Susan J. Landers , AMNews staff. March 27, 2000. Forty-four million uninsured Americans. The U.S. Census Bureau can provide some shape to the statistic.
Children are also well represented among the uninsured.
But Jack Michel, MD, and Randi Abramson, MD, can attach faces to the number. Both direct free health clinics for uninsured people. For Dr. Michel, one face is that of a cleaning woman who couldn't afford her blood pressure medication. Her visit to a private physician's office drained her already meager resources, so she stopped in at Dr. Michel's Kiwanis Club Colombia USA Medical Clinic in Miami. Others who run clinics describe diabetics verging on comas, patients with enormous undiagnosed tumors and migrant laborers with debilitating foot ailments.