Author Jonathan Cohn's has a new book out. "Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price." Much like Michael Moore’s recently released film “Sicko” the book explores how even those who thought they had adequate medical coverage found themselves in or close to financial ruin when faced with a medical crisis. The book details the stories of several working and middles class Americans who found how easy it was for their lives to slip away as they fell into some of the Gaps that exist in the healthcare insurance system.

The book and movie both have been released at a time when Americans are craving better access to low cost health insurance and healthcare reform in general.  Next to the war in Iraq affordable healthcare is likely to be the main focus of the 2008 elections.  While everyone has been screaming about the uninsured, and lack of affordable medical coverage, the book points out how exposed even those with insurance can be. To quote the author Jonathan Cohen, ”People rarely realize how vulnerable they are, you have people who have done what they would consider everything right. ...They have jobs; they have families. They're going about their business and then boom, some medical catastrophe strikes." Cohen continues, "Suddenly they discover that not only do they have to deal with this medical catastrophe but for some reason they can't pay for their health care… Either their insurance has run out or their insurance doesn't cover what they need. It's amazing to me how quickly somebody's life can unravel because of that."

Among the heart wrenching stories featured in the book: a retired man who was forced to sell his house to pay for his deteriorating wife's medications, a man who lost his job and went to work as a temp without benefits to pay the bills and had to watch helplessly as his wife died of cancer. And a young mother in Texas who took the fight directly to her insurance company to get them to cover therapy originally denied that would help her premature son learn to walk.

To solve these and many other problems with affordable health insurance and healthcare pointed out in the book, Cohen supports a universal healthcare solution. He says private insurance companies have shown they cannot or will not solve problems many of which they have caused.  Increasingly corporate America has begun to show some favor to moving away from an employer based medical benefits system that continues to be stressed. Still others argue, the current administration among them, that market driven private healthcare insurance has not been given enough time to prove that it can work.

In the meantime, the gaps in health insurance and accessibility to quality affordable healthcare continue to widen, and more and more Americans unfortunately slip through them, often with no way to resurface.