[1] The New York Times reports:

Rising costs for health coverage and a continuing fall-off in the number of workers in employer-sponsored health plans are among the reasons that a greater number of people did not have health insurance last year, experts say.

The increase in uninsured people last year, as reported by the United States Census Bureau yesterday, was 1.4 million, to a record 45 million.

More than 10 million of those without insurance were young people, 25 to 34 years old, government officials said, an increase of 576,000 from 2002. "Young adults got hammered," said John F. Holahan, a health economist at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research center in Washington.

Great, and my COBRA coverage is set to expire next year. I guess it's a good thing that I am required to have insurance for school, otherwise I probably wouldn't. I mean it just so darn expensive.

Also in the news, this time from [2] Yahoo:

Nineteen California pharmacies filed a state lawsuit Thursday accusing the world's largest pharmaceutical companies of conspiring to inflate U.S. drug prices. The pharmacies accuse the 15 drug makers of illegally conspiring to charge inflated prices in the United States while barring pharmacies from buying the makers' drugs at lower prices outside the country.

"We are being charged higher prices than foreigners are being charged," said Joseph Alioto, representing the pharmacies. "If we are selling the same drug we want to pay the same prices as everyone else."

The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County court in Oakland, alleges the pharmaceutical companies have hurt the pharmacies' bottom lines by violating California's antitrust and unfair business practices laws.

Finally someone taking on these immoral, profit mongering drug companies….