uninsured

A breast cancer diagnosis can be like an earthquake in the life of the patient and her family, but the medical community is there to help guide them. What's often hard to find is a monetary lifeline for those in danger of getting washed away by the financial tidal wave that can follow.

Free clinics and the uninsured are paying a heavy price for the nation's teetering recovery: More than half of the clinics are now time turning away eligible patients -- many for the first time -- according to an AmeriCares report published Wednesday.

An survey of 11 industrialized nations finds adults in the U.S. are by far the most likely to go without health care or skip filling a prescription because of costs, due to a high-cost health care system that lags behind those of other modern countries.

Like many Americans today, Kathy Myers is unemployed. She worked for a hazardous waste-removal company, and now joins the more than 1.2 million Michigan residents without health insurance. Due to an excruciating pain in her right shoulder, Myers took it upon herself to make matters worse by...

Bert Martinez found out five years ago that his chronically ill daughter's medical bills would top $50,000 a year -- an amount the father of five children could not afford.* So Martinez quickly learned the art of negotiation. Soon he was haggling and bartering with doctors, hospitals and other...

We've been seeing a lot of stories about people who say they're healthy and shouldn't be forced to waste the money on health insurance. For example, a recent story in The New York Times talks about a man who earns about $25,000 and never bought health insurance and doesn't think he needs it. He...

Even though it was 5:45 a.m. on a Saturday in Maryville, Tenn., the high school cafeteria had the low buzz of a student lunch period. A cadre of local volunteers sat at a row of 25 computers. Nurses waited for triage duty at tables. Other health professionals, coffee in hand, headed to their...

Robin Lauderdale traveled to a free clinic last weekend for a general medical checkup. She suffered a stroke a year earlier, and her blood pressure now was running high, she said. Lauderdale, 43, of Lenoir City, Tenn., cleans houses for a living. Self-employed, she has no health insurance....

UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research surprised everyone when they reported on March 16 that nearly one in four Californians, or 8 million, lacked health insurance during 2008 and 2009. That represents an increase of nearly 2 million in just one year because of the deep recession and mass...

Last year, some 307 American soldiers died in Iraq -- nearly twice the number killed in Afghanistan. But the home front was far deadlier for veterans: an estimated 2,266 U.S. military veterans died last year -- not from combat but from lack of health insurance, Harvard Medical School researchers...