From a national viewpoint, your question is obviously a challenging one. Yes, everyone does deserve medical coverage. But are we really willing as to pay the higher taxes we would have to in order to accomplish this? Probably not!

Illinois has a program called kidcare for those that fall under a certain income level. That is a start. Yet many of their parents have no coverage as they are part of the "working poor." They fall between the cracks of being able to afford insurance and qualifying for medicaid. So they end up going to the ER's.

As an aside, I recently changed my insurance from an HMO to an open access plan where I do not need any referrals. My premiums are increasing from 45.00 a month to 100.00 per month and I have a maximum of 1100 of out of pocket expenses. This does not include prescriptions, but my max co-pay for meds is 40.00. I did not have to pay anything for my tysabri as it was considered a treatment and not a med. I am lucky to have such good coverage. If government employees can get such good medical plans, why can't the government figure out a way to even the playing field for everyone else? Taxes! No politician is willing to say that we need to raise taxes!

Sorry for the rant