A looming crisis

THE ISSUE

Information released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau shows a record number of Americans are without health insurance. This will become one of the nation's most pressing economic issues if action isn't taken soon to increase access to health care.

More and more Americans - especially children - are without health insurance. The Census Bureau this week released statistics that show a record 47 million people - 8.7 million of them children - are not insured.

The number of people without health insurance is up 5 percent from 2005.

The increase appears to be because fewer employers are offering health insurance to workers, according to the census findings, leaving government programs to fill the gap. But a contentious struggle is brewing on Capitol Hill over funding for the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, which offers coverage to low-income children. Bills in both the House and Senate would expand coverage to children in higher income brackets, but President Bush has said he will veto any bill that expands the program by more than he has proposed.

Health-care costs are rising and health-care providers are facing cost pressures as well. With the growing number of uninsured turning to hospital emergency rooms for primary care, the financial burden on public hospitals - and indirectly state and federal funding sources - is becoming difficult.

There are any number of competing proposals for solving the crisis, from individual savings accounts, tax credits for purchasing private insurance to a universal system like those used in most industrialized countries. But none of these is getting any traction in Washington.

Presidential candidates are already beginning to talk about the issue, but the election is 14 months away; there is no reason to expect anything of substance being done until a new administration takes office in 2009.

But this is a good time for Congress to assemble a nonpartisan panel of experts to draw up recommendations for solving the crisis. It could be modeled along the lines of the 9/11 Commission, which presented recommendations for improving national security in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That would give the new administration and the new Congress a blueprint to begin debate on the future course of health care. To do nothing is not an option - too many people's lives are in the balance.