You lose your job. Then you lose your health insurance. After a couple months you can’t afford the amount you owe for your extended health insurance. Eventually you become part of the uninsured population. The economy has been tanking for some time now, taking many people’s lives with it. So why is it only now that we are finally going to reform America’s health care?

UW-Eau Claire students and staff conducted a survey that showed there is general support to reform health care in Wisconsin, certainly in connection with the number of uninsured, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate for August at 9.7 percent.

Many people are left without health insurance or are underinsured because of their inability to afford it. For some, their unemployment checks are mostly going to pay the high premiums for the health care that they do have.

According to the survey conducted by UWEC students and faculty, of the 222 people surveyed, 39 identified themselves as being underinsured and 77 as being uninsured. That is, of course only 222 people in west central Wisconsin, but it could be an indicator of what is going on around the rest of the state.

Those numbers are scary even if they only paint a portrait of how many are uninsured on the UW-EC campus. If applied to our undergraduate population of 10,346, that would mean about 34 percent or 3,517 students are uninsured. Then add about another 17 percent being underinsured. That leaves about half of the undergraduate students either uninsured or underinsured.

People who lose their health benefits are able to continue group health benefits for their family through their provider for a limited period of time through the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). But then they usually pay the entire premium amount, which also may come with a two percent administrative fee. The Commonwealth Fund estimates that people pay about $12,680 per year for a family; over $1,000 a month and “four to six times higher than what they pay when they are employed.”

With the numbers of people out of work, how are they expected to pay for health insurance when they have no source of income? Unemployment can only stretch so far for supporting a family.

When a person is unemployed, and their spouse is unemployed and they are trying to provide health insurance for their family, how is the money they get from unemployment supposed to provide the necessities for their family and then also pay for health insurance? This may sound exaggerated, but one would be surprised to find out how true this previous statement is for families across the country.

With Obama’s health care plan, Stability and Security for all Americans, it states that people who are without a job can get new, high quality, affordable health care options. I think that this is long overdue for the number of people who have been jobless for an extended amount of time already. Being without health insurance or being underinsured leaves that person and their family as a ticking time-bomb.

I wish that Obama’s plan could have been put into action long before we got ourselves so deep into this health care crisis. I have seen too many people struggle with their absence of health care. Between the heart breaking number of people who are unemployed and the number of people struggling with paying for health insurance, Obama’s new health care plan has to help. Although there will still be that issue of having to pay for health care, at least this plan will help with getting individuals and families high quality and affordable health care. I am sure there will still remain some individuals and families that may not be able to afford health care, but at least this is a start to lowering the number of people without it.