Transforming statistics into faces. (Health Care Industry Spotlight).

Seeking to add a greater sense of urgency and a human face to the national discussion on the plight of uninsured Americans, the Healthcare Leadership Council said recently that it will begin transmitting to Congress and the national news media real-life stories of individuals whose lives are being affected by a lack of health care coverage.

The series, "Uninsured America: Living On The Edge" began earlier this year with a report on a restaurant chef, Thomas Skeen. Skeen may have to give up his 30-year career as a chef because of stress fractures in both of his feet -- a condition for which ongoing treatment and medication is necessary, but not available to Skeen because he works for a small business unable to provide health coverage to its employees and because an individual health policy is just beyond his means.

"America needs to hear the stories of people like Thomas Skeen and the tens of millions like him whose lives are affected because they don't have health insurance," said Mary R. Grealy, president of the Healthcare Leadership Council. "We usually speak of the uninsured in terms of numbers, but we need to remember that they are people--oftentimes working families who get their health care from emergency rooms because they don't get the preventive and diagnostic care that comes with having health coverage."

She added, "American's uninsured problem is not about statistics. It's about people who miss days on the job and kids who are too often absent from school. It's about people who are sick more often than they should be, and die earlier than they ought to."

The Healthcare Leadership Council has created the national Health Access America campaign to urge Congress and the White House to take bold action on behalf of uninsured Americans. The campaign is seeking tax incentives to make private health insurance more affordable for working families and small business owners, improvements in current federal health programs like Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and public education initiatives to provide information on the importance and availability of health coverage.

"Eight of every 10 uninsured Americans live in wage-earning households," said Grealy. "These are people who work hard to build comfortable lives for their families, but they're living on the edge of disaster. Without health coverage, just one serious illness or injury can take away so much of what they've worked for, And, without preventive care, the odds of a serious illness increase. Washington needs to act swiftly to help pull these working families back from the edge."

Information provided by the Healthcare Leadership Council. For more in formation, visit www.hlc.org.