COMMUNITY OUTREACH | CRITICAL CONDITION
What happens if you fall sick and you're one of the 47 million Americans without health insurance?
WPT brought this powerful question to your community, in partnership with Covering Kids and Families-Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Library Association.
The acclaimed POV documentary Critical Condition puts a human face on the nation's growing health care crisis by capturing the harrowing struggles of four critically ill Americans who discover that being uninsured can cost them their jobs, health, home, savings and even their lives.
In honor of
Despite spending 50% more on health care than any other country in the world, the United States ranks 15th in preventable death, 24th in life expectancy, and 28th in infant mortality. Critical Condition profiles four families to put a human face on just what these statistics really mean for ordinary Americans.
Coming off the heels of an election season in which health care reform was one of the most hotly debated issues, Critical Condition reveals the consequences of an increasingly expensive and inaccessible system, in a powerful documentary sure to hit home.
For More Information
Contact Wisconsin Public Television at 608.265.9092, or email us at outreach@wpt.org
Cover the Uninsured Week | March 22-28, 2009
National
In 2007, an estimated 64,000 children and 424,000 adults across Wisconsin were living without health insurance. Being uninsured can have dire effects, often because preventive care is ignored or delayed. This leads to far more serious, difficult-to-treat, and expensive conditions down the road.
For example, uninsured children are 10 times less likely to have a regular source of health care, up to six times more likely to go without needed medical care, and up to five times more likely to have unmet health needs, such as eyeglasses, asthma treatment or prescription drugs. In addition, people without health insurance are up to three times more likely to die in the hospital.
The following resources can help you join the important conversation about the future of health care in our state and in our country.
Fact Sheets
Wisconsin Statistics
National Statistics
State & National
Health Care Policy
County-by-County
Book Suggestions
Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health
Care Crisis-And the People Who Pay the Price. By Jonathon Cohn
Healthcare, Guaranteed. By Ezekiel
Emanuel
Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care
is Better than Yours. By Phillip Longman
Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making
Us Sicker and Poorer. By Shannon Brownlee
Second Opinion: Rescuing
America's Health Care. By Arnold Relman
The Cure: How Capitalism
Can Save American Health Care. By David Gratzer
The System: The
American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point. By Haynes Johnson
and David Broder
Boomerang: Health Care Reform and the Turn
Against Government. By Theda Skocpol
Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine
for America's Health Care System. By David M. Cutler
