Subject: Fwd: Press Release on Uninsured
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                PHYSICIANS FOR A NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM
                    332 S. Michigan, Suite 500
                        Chicago, IL 60604
                            (312) 554-0382

Embargoed Until:                Contacts:
Wednesday, December 30          Dr. David Himmelstein
4 p.m.                          (617) 498-1032
                                Dr. Quentin Young
                                (312) 554-0382

        AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE UP 10 MILLION IN 1990'S

        Nearly every state affected despite economic growth, study finds


        Economic growth hasn't stopped the number of Americans without
health insurance from climbing by 10 million people since 1989, to 43.4
million, according to a study in today's American Journal of Public
Health.

        "By the time Congress finishes with the impeachment debate,
another half- million people will have lost their health insurance,"
according to Dr. David Himmelstein, an author of the study and Associate
Professor of Medicine at Harvard. "Unfortunately, none of them will be
members of Congress."

        The study, the first comprehensive look at insurance trends in
the 1990's, found that the number of uninsured is rising at a rate of over
100,000 people losing coverage every month, despite the nation's strong
economic growth -- including more than a 25% increase in the Gross
National Product and a doubling of the Dow Jones industrial average
since
1989.

        One in six Americans (16%) is now uninsured, up from one in
seven (13.6%) at the start of the decade.

        "Not having health insurance is a major catastrophe for patients
-- medically, financially, and emotionally," said Dr. Quentin Young,
National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program and an
internist in Chicago. "It's a silent, devastating epidemic sweeping
across the nation."

        Among those most affected by the loss of insurance are young
adults aged 18-39, blacks, and hispanics.  From 1989 to 1993 the
majority of the increase was among low-income families, but since 1994
middle-income families have been increasingly affected as well.

        In several southern and western states (Texas, Arkansas, New
Mexico, Arizona), nearly one in every four persons is uninsured.  However,
northeastern states (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
and Maine) had the largest increases in the percentage of their residents
without coverage since 1989.

        "Incremental reforms have had no impact on the rising number of
uninsured,"  noted Dr. Olveen Carasquillo, co-author of the study and an
internist at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

        "Two states which have been held up as models of reform --
Oregon and Hawaii -- both have experienced increases.  The Kennedy-Kassebaum
Insurance Portability Act has helped few people between jobs keep their
insurance, and the Children's Health Insurance Plan is not and will not
stem the rising tide of uninsurance among children."  The number of
uninsured children increased from 8.5 million in 1989 to 10.7 million in
1997.

        "The tragedy is that this a preventable epidemic.  Every other
industrialized country, from Denmark to Japan, Canada to Australia,
Norway to Germany, England to Taiwan, has a national system of universal
coverage," said Dr.  Young.

         "They aren't perfect, and you may have to wait a few weeks for
an MRI, but almost uniformly you can choose your physicians, receive
excellent primary and specialty care at the same or higher quality as in
the U.S., and the health outcomes are better.  It's time for the U.S. to
adopt a national health program once and for all."

        The study analyzed Census Bureau data from 1989 to 1996.  An
additional year of data was analyzed by the authors after the article
went to press, and is available from PNHP.


        ####


Copies of "Going Bare:  Trends in Health Insurance Coverage, 1989-1996"
by Carasquillo, Himmelstein, Woolhandler, and Bor, American Journal of
Public Health, with an additional year of data (1997) and state by state
figures are available to press at (312) 554-0382.

Physicians for a National Health Program is an organization of over
8,000 physicians who support universal access to health care.  PNHP was
founded in 1987.

Dr. Quentin Young is an internist in Chicago and National Coordinator of
Physicians for a National Health Program.  Dr. Young is also the Past
President of the American Public Health Association.

Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo is Assistant Professor at Columbia University's
College of Physicians and Surgeons.  He practices internal medicine at
New
York Presbyterian Hospital (212) 305-9782.

Dr. David Himmelstein is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard
Medical School and co-founder of PNHP.  He is an internist.

               PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY


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