With 32 percent of residents lacking health insurance, Houston's Harris County has the highest uninsurance rate in the nation. That is costing area hospitals about $2 billion a year in uncompensated care. An editorial in the Houston Chronicle lauds an effort by Harris County Public Healthcare System Council to use a Federal grant to offer $150 a month insurance to the working poor. Yet this will get at maximum to only 10 percent of the uninsured. According to the editorial, "Until the federal government tackles the health care insurance crisis on a national level, universal coverage in Texas and elsewhere will remain an unattainable goal."
- read this Op-Ed in the Houston Chronicle