Letter talking points:*

• Americans worry about being able to afford the health care they need. A Consumer Reports Health survey found that 65% of Americans fear losing their job-related health coverage. 81% are concerned about being able to afford health care in retirement.
• The high costs of health care can wreak havoc on our wallets. Since 2000, about five million families have filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of serious medical problems.
• American workers saw the cost of family premiums increase 35%, while incomes remain flat.
• While American families pay more, the nation's six largest private health insurers collectively earned nearly $11 billion in profit.
• According to the latest government figures, 47 million Americans were uninsured in 2006, an increase of 2.2 million from the year before. More than 4 out of 5 of them are in working families.
• Too many Americans are harmed by unsafe medical care. More than 2.6 million hospital patients are the victims of infections and preventable medical errors each year, and almost 200,000 of them die. This makes medically-induced harm --errors and hospital-acquired infections -- the third leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease and cancer.

*See our National Fact Sheet for additional talking points and citations.