Animation: Why Americans Need Health Reform

Larry's a small business owner. He owns a bookstore and offers health insurance benefits to his 10 employees.

One of his workers, Doris, goes in for a routine check-up and finds out that she has chronic heart disease.

She needs to go see a specialist, get prescriptions, and start seeing a doctor regularly.

The health bills add up, and the insurance company raises the bookstore's premiums.

Larry can't afford the higher rates, so he has to cut the bookstore's health benefits.

Doris can't afford her health care anymore, so starts skipping doctor's appointments and doesn't refill her prescriptions. Without the care she needs, Doris ends up getting sick and having to go to the emergency room.

Doris gets better, but she doesn't have the money to pay for her hospital visit. The hospital never gets paid for the visit, so it passes the costs on to its insured patients.

Doris isn't the only uninsured patient to visit the hospital, and the costs add up quickly. Soon the insurance company raises premiums for all its policyholders to cover these rising costs.

But not all of the policyholders can afford the higher costs. The local hardware store next door to the bookstore was already struggling with rising premiums, and the new round of rate hikes pushes it over the edge. It has to drop its employee health coverage, and the cycle begins again.

Without health reform:

• Businesses' costs will continue to increase
• Families' out-of-pocket costs will rise
• American workers will not receive the health care they need to be healthy

Americans need health reform, and they need it now.