Economic Crisis Will Cause Health Crisis

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, published a thought-provoking piece about the economic crisis and its effect on urgency of universal health care. I'll quote the first and last paragraphs, but you really should read the whole article to understand the excellent analysis:

The whole world is in recession. But the United States is the only wealthy country in which the economic catastrophe will also be a health care catastrophe — in which millions of people will lose their health insurance along with their jobs, and therefore lose access to essential care.
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The bottom line, then, is that this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!

It has always baffled me that those who claim to support economic freedom are satisfied with the reality that most people are tied to their employers if they want health care for their families. Now that middle-class families are losing health care benefits, perhaps the wisdom of breaking that link will become more apparent to more people.