State of Emergency: Health Reform and the Elections
2007 Fellow Daisy Lin's big picture look at health care crisis in an election year was nominated for a Los Angeles Emmy.
Families living on the edge of financial ruin; People suffering from pain and uncertainty; Americans are living with a crippled health care system in a "State of Emergency."
The United States may be the richest country in the world with the best technology, but the very health of its people is threatened by an ailing healthcare system.
Today, 15% of Americans have no health insurance. Americans who are seriously ill often go bankrupt because of escalating medical bills.
"We're in a crisis now, it's not 20 years from now, it's now," says Dr. David Goldstein, chief of geriatric and internal medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine.
While the uninsured are not getting enough care, some argue the well-insured are getting too much.
"State of Emergency: Health Reform and the Election" looks at the big picture: KNBC reporters John Cadiz Klemack examines the crisis of the uninsured and under-insured, Kim Baldonado looks at the strain of health insurance costs on small businesses, Doug Kriegel investigates why healthcare costs are so high, and Conan Nolan lays out the health reform platforms of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama and Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain. Each offers very different solutions; Which plan will help you, and your children?
As election day approaches, it is up to voters which direction to take the country.
Watch the half-hour special on the NBC Los Angeles website.