A little more health care rant before I shut up.

A study by the Institute of Medicine estimated that one American dies every 30 minutes from lack of health insurance. David Himmelstein, a study co-author and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said. "Even his grim figure is an underestimate—now one dies every 12 minutes."

LET'S TALK VETERANS.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's March 2009 Population Survey, 1,461,615 veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 were uninsured -- that is, they neither had health insurance nor received ongoing care at Veterans Health Administration hospitals or clinics -- in 2008.

In January of 2007 Michael Baranik was told he had terminal cancer. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was also told that his veteran's health care insurance wasn't adequate to cover the number of chemotherapy sessions he would need.

Over the next few weeks, Jennings went from one doctor to another, hoping to find one who would give him the needed treatment. In a letter to the non-profit, National Nurses Organizing Committee he wrote "Luckily, I begged and begged a doctor, who said he would only give me seven treatments because of insurance". But his efforts weren't enough. Jennings died a few months after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Liz Jacobs, of the California Nurses Association, said Jennings was "very ill" when he contacted them two years ago. In the letter he wrote to the National Nurses Organizing Committee he said, "This is what I get for serving my country for 24 years. If I had known this when I joined, I would never have joined. "I would have left this country, given up my citizenship and lived in a country where they respect the men and women that protect their freedom."

Harvard Medical School said lack of health insurance claimed the lives of more than 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 last year. That number is more than 14 times the number of deaths suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and twice as many as have died since the war began in 2003.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler a professor of medicine says "Uninsured veterans are a stain on America's flag. It's particularly striking that a combat veteran who has already served his country is denied [adequate] health care."

In 2007 Woolhandler testified before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. He said "Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people - too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care."

LET'S TALK CHILDREN

According to a study by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, lack of adequate health care insurance may have contributed to the deaths of some 17,000 hospitalized U.S. children over the past two decades. The research was compiled from more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005 and concluded that "uninsured children are 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance. When comparing death rates by underlying disease, the uninsured appeared to have increased risk of dying independent regardless of their medical condition."

Lead investigator Fizan Abdullah, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center says “If you are a child without insurance, if you're seriously ill and end up in the hospital, you are 60 percent more likely to die than the sick child in the next room who has insurance."

Co-investigator Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins and medical director of the Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care says "Thousands of children die needlessly each year because we lack a health system that provides them health insurance. This should not be. In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health insurance to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic issue."

OK, I'll shut up.