If You Need More Proof

Thanks to Seeing Eye Chick over at Apocalyptics Anonymous for emailing me the link to this article.

Some quick excerpts from the Reuters' piece:

"WASHINGTON - Americans are struggling to pay for health care in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.

Baby boomers — the generation born between 1946 and 1964 — had the most trouble and were the most likely to put off medical treatments or services, said researchers at Center for Health Care Improvement, part of the health care business of Thomson Reuters.

The study found that 17.4 percent of households reported postponing or delaying health care over the past year."

[...]

"Thomson Reuters — the parent company of Reuters news agency — used its annual Pulse survey that queries 100,000 households to get information about health behavior.

Gary Pickens, George Popa and colleagues at the Michigan-based center interviewed more than 6,000 people in March and April about job losses, what health care they had used and their plans for future treatment."

40 % of those surveyed plan to postpone medical treatment over the next three months.

Think about that for a moment.

Unemployed people, already under economic stress, are being forced to stop taking medication for chronic illnesses, like diabetes, asthma, etc.

Consumer Reports Health Blog reports that medical related bankruptcies are up 50% since 2001 according to an identical survey done by the same researchers of the American Journal of Medicine. 62% of bankruptcies in 2007 were due to illness and/or medical bills.

If you haven't yet signed the petition I created online, please sign.

I am researching ballot initiatives and am working on a post about it.

Thanks to those who have signed and to those who have passed on the link to others. I created a red button for the petition that you are welcome to download and post to your blog. Depending on your blog-platform, you may also be able to link to the petition via the button.**

We need to reclaim our national legacy of a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863).

**[For blogger bloggers, right-click on the button and then highlight and click the "save image as" option and save it wherever you want on your computer. In the layout screen of your blog, click "Add a Gadget" wherever you want the button to go. Add it as a "picture." A box titled "Configure Picture" should pop up. Upload the image from your computer using the "browse" button to locate it where you saved it. Then you can copy and paste the petition link into the "link" box and the petition will then be linked to the button on your blog.]