College Football Roundup

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Who'll pay the tab when you're ill?

How to ensure that health care is affordable and accessible to all Americans is one of the major concerns on voters' minds this election year.

Even if you have medical insurance, like Maureen McMullen of Clayton, you can find yourself facing huge medical costs that can take years to pay off. Others put off medical treatment or make the emergency room their doctor's office.

As for employers, they are rethinking their traditional role as the link between most Americans and their health insurance.

Uninsured more likely to die after an injury

Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a new study.

The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who thought emergency room care was equitable.

"This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist.

N.C. insurance costs cutting deeper

North Carolina's unemployment rate, already at its highest level in the three-decade history of jobless records, is forecast to keep climbing for the rest of this year, cutting off employer-subsidized health insurance coverage for tens of thousands of workers.

But thousands more who manage to hold onto their jobs may lose their insurance anyway as premiums push small businesses into a choice between offering health care or laying off employees. Other workers may see deductibles rise so high they'll be able to count on their insurance for little more than catastrophic emergencies, said Dr. Kevin Schulman, a physician who directs the health sector management program at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business,

Rising unemployment will "increase the number of uninsured going forward and will increase the number of people who can't afford to use their insurance," Schulman said Monday. "It's going to have an impact on people in North Carolina, an impact on people who lose their insurance, an impact on people

Treating N.C.'s problems

As a physician who has practiced medicine in North Carolina for more than 30 years, I am extremely concerned about our state's health care system. My patients, and your family and friends, are being served by a system that is in danger of collapsing because of rising costs, elevated levels of chronic disease and the strains of a waning economy.

I'm encouraged by the commitment from our leaders to fix the system and their willingness to be transparent in a variety of national discussions, such as the Regional White House Forum on Health Care to be held Tuesday in Greensboro. The onus now falls on us to talk about what type of reform we want and what the priorities must be.

The crisis is daunting — millions of uninsured Americans, increasing insurance premiums burdening families and businesses, and skyrocketing rates of obesity and other chronic diseases. While these are serious problems, a related yet often overlooked issue — health inequalities — also deserves our attention.

Car insurance bill passes Senate

Thousands of car owners could get relief from a recent spike in their insurance bills under a bill approved by the Senate on Monday night.

The legislation, passed 48-0, would eliminate a requirement that auto insurance policies provide the same level of coverage for uninsured and underinsured motorist protection that they do for liability coverage.

Many car insurance bills rose on Jan. 1 because of a statewide rate increase, but thousands of those premiums also jumped because of a twist in a new state law. The law requires that all policies include coverage for medical expenses and other costs from accidents in which the car owner is hit by another driver who has no insurance or insufficient insurance.