Number in Chicago without health insurance hits 22.7%. (Chicago Sun-Times)

[CShine]

The number of people in Illinois without health insurance is up for the second year in a row, to 15.9 percent, says a new report by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In Chicago, the proportion is much higher, 22.7 percent. In the metropolitan area, it's 12.8 percent.

"You walk into a doctor's office, and they say you need a 45-minute procedure and it will set you back $40,000," one Chicago man told the Gilead Outreach and Referral Center, which commissioned the study. "I went home, and I had to sell the car and assets," he said. "The alternative was debilitating. At that point, you're self-funded."

Rates of uninsured people are especially high for Hispanics who are not citizens, says the report, which was conducted by Dr. Deborah Rosenberg and Kristin Rankin at the UIC School of Public Health.

In Chicago, more than 68 percent of non-citizen Hispanics have no health insurance. In that group, only 38 percent who have diabetes sought annual foot exams, which are needed for early identification of problems that could lead to amputation. Only 16 percent of uninsured Hispanic men ages 40 to 64 received prostate exams.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-insure08.html

[lucky777]

1. Bush Should Go To Cook County Hospital

It is an eye-opener on the true state of health care in the inner cities. I went there for years while getting my PhD because I had no insurance through the school (I had left a law firm and couldn't afford the cobra). It is very depressing -- sick people coughing everywhere, smells, gunshot wounds, people falling over, prisoners from Cook County jail chained to the seats, just terrible -- it breaks your heart. My college buddy was a chief attending physician so I always went to the front of the line and got all the attention that I could want, but the rest of the people just sat there all day.
This is a national tragedy. How can anyone say "America #1" when we can't even take care of basic health for everybody?