More Residents Lack Health Care Coverage

Okay - maybe the readers of reality-based blogs can help me figure this one out...according to the Ohio News Network:

More and more people each year are without health insurance, and Ohio falls in line as more than twelve percent of the population was without coverage last year.

That number is up nearly 3.5 percent from 2003.

In Cleveland, MetroHealth Medical Center is the only place the uninsured can go for treatment. Twenty percent of the people who came through the door at MetroHealth last year were uninsured.

Dr. Reed Tuckson believes a lack of coverage affects, and costs, everyone. He says, "We know that when there are people who don't get the preventive services, the screening services they need, they have disease burdens that put all of us at risk for communicable disease, so we're all affected."

MetroHealth provided $108 million in charity care in 2003. That number jumped to $123 million last year.

So, Ohio can't insure its citizens against illness and disease (I consider Ohio the microcosm of the situation in many states...).

I would think that a state with the plethora of churches rich enough to build statues like this...

...would certainly have enough money to help with healthcare of the needy.

I would argue that it might be a little more "WWJD-esque" to have put some of the $$$$ it cost for what looks for all the world to me like a f*cking graven image into helping some of those who might just be losing their houses due to bankruptsy after being treated for cancer.

But no, unfortunately, Ohio churches (and most churches) are more focused on big-assed-jeezus statues than helping citizens in need.