8.3 million children uninsured -- all-time high

With the prominence of the Iraq war, gas prices and all the Congressional scandals putting economic issues on the back-burner, people tend to forget that the latest Census Bureau numbers spell trouble for the middle class.  The number of uninsured is at an all-time high.

Robert Greenstein, Executive Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, explained the significance of these numbers just released two days ago:

“It is sobering that 5.4 million morepeople lacked health insurance in 2005 than in the recession year of2001, primarily because of the erosion of employer-based insurance.”

Census data show that 46.6 millionAmericans were uninsured in 2005, an increase of 1.3 million from thenumber of uninsured in 2004 (45.3 million).  The percentage who areuninsured rose from 15.6 percent in 2004 to 15.9 percent in 2005.  Thenumber of children who are uninsured rose from 7.9 million in 2004 to8.3 million in 2005.

Any effort by John Kerry, John Edwards or any other Democrat to tackle this issue has been labeled as socialized medicine.  Even though foreign policy seems to trump every other issue now, middle class families want to hear the Democrats discuss the issue of health care a lot more.  This is a winning issue.

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Other sites blogging about this issue: Say Anything, Liberal Lucidity, Newsvine, Media Matters.