The uninsured pose too great a cost

Forty million residents without health care coverage are an epidemic at any time. Just visit any hospital today and see the increased number of isolation patients with contagious diseases, many of whom were forced to ignore or waited too long for treatment due to the lack of insurance.

These people live in our city and, untreated, could spread their diseases to all of us.

Almost as scary is the cost to all of us when the uninsured visit the emergency room, a treatment center that has to accept even those with no means of paying. Many of those patients could have been attended to at your local drugstore or doctor's office at a fraction of the cost if the individual had insurance coverage.

We pay for the emergency room costs through high insurance premiums that cover all costs facing our hospital system.

Not extending health care coverage is both a pandemic time bomb and a financial burden that is costing all Americans.

Larry Garbarek

Des Plaines