To hear some people tell it, the number of people without health insurance in the United States is vastly overstated.
There are the illegal immigrants, the argument goes, and then there are those who can afford to buy insurance but don’t…

Matson

Poverty is on the rise in Missouri. Over the past nine years, the state’s poverty rate has grown at more than double the national average.
The change has disproportionately affected whites. Poverty remains significantly higher among African-Americans. But the poverty rate grew fastest…

President Barack Obama will try to retake the initiative on health care reform this evening with a nationally televised address to Congress. Conventional wisdom holds that it will be among the most important speeches of his political career.
That’s entirely backward.
Whatever…

Doctors practice new hip replacement techniques on a cadaver.

As chairman of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, knows a thing or two about health care. But some of what he knows just isn’t true.
“I’m 59,”…

Thousands of angry protesters turned out at town hall meetings in Hillsboro, Cape Girardeau and across the country this week. They had come to pledge their unstinting support for the world’s 37th best-performing health care system.
The protesters vowed to protect a…

When it comes to health care reform, most people are on the side of the angels — as long it doesn’t cost too much. But let’s be blunt here: What’s in it for us?
More than you probably think.
The United States…

About 75 percent of Americans who work part-time can’t get health insurance through their jobs. Missouri lawmakers are part of the fortunate 25 percent. The part-time lawmakers, whose five-month legislative session ended Friday, not only can buy coverage for themselves —…

Legislators throw paper copies of bills into the air at the close of the 2006 session.

Chiseled in stone on the state capitol in Jefferson City is a Latin phrase that translates as “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme…

Republican lawmakers in Missouri have a problem: They’d like to reduce the number of uninsured Missourians. But they don’t want to admit that their 2005 Medicaid cuts were a mistake — or hand Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon a political victory.
Mr.…

A patient checks in at a clinic inside a Wal-Mart store in this AP file photo.

And now for something completely different: a few kind words about Wal-Mart.

Say what you will about it — in the past, we and other critics…

About 344,000 people in Missouri were uninsured in 1999. About 815,000 have no coverage now — an increase of roughly 137 percent.

You might expect that staggering growth to inspire a sense of urgency in Jefferson City. Instead, legislators spent the…

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved an $819 billion economic stimulus plan that contains the most sweeping expansion of Medicaid in more than a decade.

For the first time, millions of unemployed Americans and their families would become eligible —…

Barack Obama serves lunch to a patient during a visit to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in June.

A few days before the historic election that swept him into the presidency, Barack Obama was asked to name his top priorities for 2009. They were,…

The number of uninsured Missouri children increased by 44 percent since Gov. Matt Blunt took office in 2005, a fact we noted on this page Sept. 14. In a letter to the editor that we published Wednesday, Mr. Blunt complained…

The sticky issue of charity care — health care delivered by a hospital without the expectation of payment — got a lot of attention last week.

A circuit court judge in St. Louis, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and members of…

Whatever else is said or done in the next 18 months about reforming the American health care system, tectonic shifts already are well underway.
The latest evidence comes from a new Census Bureau report released last week. It found that the number…

The older you get, the more likely you are to develop a chronic illness such as heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer. The more chronic illnesses you have, the more health care you need.
The inevitability of illness is why…

Having health insurance used to mean that if you got sick, you’d get all the medical care you needed. Not any more.
A new survey from the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change found significant increases in the number of people…

The St. Louis-based Missouri Foundation For Health gives away about $60 million a year to nonprofit groups that provide medical care to the poor and uninsured. The foundation has paid for kids’ dental care; provided the cervical cancer vaccine to…

If it were put to a simple up-or-down vote today, Missouri lawmakers probably would agree to extend health insurance coverage to about 55,000 working parents who are struggling to raise their children.
But that’s not going to happen. Extending health insurance to…