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According to a Kaiser Foundation study, the cost of health insurance premiums continues to climb for companies and workers, with annual family premiums this year (2011) growing at a pace triple of 2010 and outpacing wage increases. Family premiums in employer sponsored health plans increased 9% in 2011 and single premiums increased 8% compared to3% and 5% last...

  Linking health care to a volatile job market puts health care services at risk. There was a 7% rise in medical debt from 2007-09. Californians are living on a very thin margin because their most of their medical debt is under $2000. More than 50% of their plans are high deductible, which puts additional strain on their budgets. Even Medi-Cal enrolees...

Prescription drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental deaths in the US. Forty percent of these deaths are from opioid prescriptions. Over the past three decades the number of drug poisonings has increased  sixfold, and there are now more than 36,000 deaths annually in the US. Between 1999 and 2010 physician prescriptions for opioids increased fourfold....