More than 700,000 South Carolinians, including 145,000 children, have no health care insurance. More than half are white. Eight of 10 live in working families, but they can’t afford coverage. Ironically, they pay taxes that help support government programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, but they make too much to qualify for Medicaid and they are not old enough to qualify for Medicare. Therefore, their families go without. Too often these individuals receive less preventive care, are diagnosed later in the disease process, and die earlier than they would have if they had health coverage. When a person without insurance is sick or injured, he is most likely to go to the hospital emergency room for treatment. If his illness requires more intense care, he will probably be admitted to the hospital.

During 2007, South Carolina hospitals provided $1.3 billion in care to persons who were either uninsured or underinsured. Much of that was spent treating preventable diseases or diseases that could have been treated much more effi ciently and successfully with early diagnosis. And all of those costs were passed on to insured patients as higher hospital bills, which ultimately lead to higher premiums. In the United States, the average insured family pays an additional $922 in premiums each year to help cover the health care bills of uninsured patients. So uninsured or not, each of us is a victim of the crisis.

For more information on the uninsured and the Covering Carolina Collaborative, go to http://www.coveringcarolina.com.