Fast Fact

In 2006, 11.7% of children, or 8.7 million kids, went without health insurance. That's up from the previous year, when 10.9%, or 8 million children, were uninsured.

47 million Americans lacked health insurance in 2006, up from 38 million in 2000.

Medicare cost savings rose to $1.2 billion in 2006 from $136 million in 2001

Approximately 1 percent of prescription costs are likely due to fraud, waste, or abuse. This amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary costs for the Medicare Part D program and its beneficiaries.

Medicare made up 22 percent of physicians’ revenue in 2006.

Medicare beneficiaries will pay more out of pocket for their prescription drugs next year. The Part D standard benefit deductible will increase from $275 to $295 and the initial coverage limit — the threshold amount shared by the insurance company and the beneficiary — will increase from $2,510 to $2,700.

With one month of Iraq war funding we could have bought more than a year’s health insurance for the 4 million children Bush vetoed under SCHIP.

Bush vetoed spending $35 billion over five years to provide health care for 4 million children, while defending the tax break that allows billionaire hedge fund operators to pay a lower rate than their receptionists

The GAO reports that Medicare spends more per beneficiary in private Medicare Advantage plans than it does for beneficiaries in the original Medicare program - a projected $54 billion more from 2009 to 2012.

Under Medicare Advantage, the government first reimburses insurance companies for medical expenditures. Then it provides an additional payment for nonmedical expenses such as marketing, sales and profits.

Pharmaceutical companies have drastically raised prices on brand name drugs commonly prescribed to elderly people in Medicare Part D, since its implementation in 2006. The prices of 220 brand name drugs used by people in Part D increased by an average of 7.4 percent in 2007 — more than two times the general inflation rate. The average cost per perscription rose from $80 to $151 in 2007, threatening consumers by increasing the likelihood of higher premiums and the chance that people will fall into the gap created by this "donut hole," and increase their out-of-pocket spending.