Decreasing Healthcare Coverage

From one of my hometown newspapers comes the story of falling rates of coverage for healthcare by employers. This isn't particularly surprising in light of steady, above-the-rate-of-inflation, increases we're accustomed to seeing in health insurance premiums. Hand in glove with decreasing employer sponsored medical benefits are increasing numbers of people without health insurance. Contrary to what the President says, we cannot effectively deal with this problem by having people simply use their local emergency room as their personal medical plan when ill health strikes.