The latest information from the Department of Labor and Statistics shows 47 million Americans do not have health insurance. Even among insured, the premiums and deductibles are sky rocketing. Last year, the number one reason for bankruptcy was inability to pay medical bills, paradoxically by the people who did have insurance.

According to the Journal of American Medical Association, over 200,000 Americans die each year due to side effects of drugs, hospital acquired infections, complications from unnecessary surgeries and medical errors. The FDA's budget is partly supported by drug companies and this organization has ignored warnings by whistle blowers resulting in tragedies like Vioxx killing several thousand Americans.

We are the one of the only two countries in the world where drug companies openly advertise misleading information on television. Even though United States spends almost twice as much as Canada, most European countries and Japan in health care, we are the last among industrialized nations in terms of life expectancy at birth and child mortality. Clearly there is a looming crisis in the American health care system.

America is the only country in the industrialized world which does not provide universal health care, even though the United Nations has mandated health care as a birth right rather than a privilege. The U.S. government has failed to provide health care for its citizens. Unless steps are taken at the federal level to provide universal health care, there will be a health care crisis in the coming years. An organization called Physician for National Health Program (PNHP) with 14,000 doctors as members, has a proposal based on a single-payer system as a solution. Further information can be found at www.healthcarescam.org and www.pnhp.org.

Sachi Kuhananthan, M.D.

Champaign resident