I'm one of those 30 million people without health insurance. I don't have it, my wife doesn't have it, my daughter doesn't have it.

The short version of the story goes like this. A couple of years ago, I received a note from my insurer that they were going to be tripling the monthly premium for my small business coverage. So I had no choice but to either go broke paying the new premium, or simply cancel the coverage. I canceled it.

In the meantime, I was hit by a car while cycling and fractured my T10 vertebra.

Whether you're a child rushed to an emergency room for care or an adult who has put off preventive medical care, if you don't have health insurance, you are more likely to die. That's been confirmed by three different health studies.

• Johns Hopkins School of Medicine found that uninsured children who are hospitalized are 60% more likely to die.

• Harvard University found that large numbers of uninsured adults have chronic illnesses that are undiagnosed and under-treated, which means they are not getting treatments that could prevent strokes, heart attacks, amputations and kidney failure.

You'll find numerous blogs out there threatening jail time for the uninsured, but don't believe them. This is just another scare tactic to prevent health insurance reform.

While it's true there are penalties for those who choose not to get insurance, that penalty is 2.5% of one's income and the penalties will be collected by the IRS. Jail time is not likely. In fact criminal prosecutions by the IRS are rare. Of 156 million individual tax returns filed in 2008, only 100 resulted in criminal prosecutions for those who willfully defrauded the system. The penalty will only impact those who are wealthy enough to pay for insurance and choose not to pay. The intent is that this penalty will be used to pay for the medical needs of those who choose not to get insurance.

Critics of health-care insurance overhaul legislation, currently being debated in the U.S. Senate, have charged that any change to the existing system will result in greater numbers of unhappy patients. A new survey of satisfaction among consumers with health coverage, however, shows promise that it is possible to cover everyone and still have satisfied patients.

If you ask a progressive on the president's left flank, they'll probably tell you that the House health care reform bill that passed the House on Saturday is, in fact, a weak bill with a public option that's doomed to fail.

I don't necessarily agree. The bill clamps down hard on insurance companies by capping out-of-pocket expenses, banning discrimination for pre-existing conditions, banning rescission (rescinding a policy as soon as you become sick or injured), creating health exchanges to encourage competition, stripping the insurance companies of their tasty anti-trust exemption, and, of course, there's a public health insurance program. There are also government subsidies to help us pay for insurance -- offering financial assistance to families earning up to $88,000 annually.

If you lost your job, right now you can get a 65% subsidy from the government to help pay for a continuation of your health benefits under COBRA for nine months. The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act may be a weird name for a bill about health insurance, but it's basically the law that requires companies to let people pay to remain on their group health insurance plans for at least 18 months.

But that could end shortly. Congress passed the 65% subsidy as unemployment rose in this country, but it's due to expire Dec. 31. A bill to extend the subsidy for a total of 15 months was introduced last week by Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa. Originally, the subsidy was available for nine months. So someone who began collecting the subsidiary on March 1 would run out of help at the end of November.

Huzzah! We have a new record.

Open Secrets reports that lobbyists have dropped more money in the third quarter than during any other quarter since spending disclosures began -- $849 million to be exact. In three months.

Total for the year so far: $2.5 billion. Naturally, the health care sector is leading the year so far with $396 million.

If you've been wondering why the Republicans are insane and why too many of the Democrats are acting like, well, Republicans, this is your answer (I'm looking at you Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh).

Firstly, as we all know, lobbyists own Congress, but in terms of the big issues this year, ranging from energy to health care, the Republicans are being well-paid to flail and obstruct and generally thwart any efforts for reform.

Meanwhile, some of the Democrats who've muddied and watered-down the health care reform bill are equally as guilty of following orders from the people signing the checks, so they're stalling reform but not with the same fury as the Republicans.

Ten years ago, the health insurance providers and HMOs spent around $20 million on lobbying. This year, they're rapidly approaching $60 million. Just one of the expenses you finance with 30% of your monthly premium.

More good news on this front. The Supreme Court is deliberating the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case to determine whether a corporate-financed anti-Clinton documentary from 2008 is considered political speech. If the Court rules in favor of Citizens United, the Court will effectively give corporations free license to use money as political speech. In other words, the lobbyist scene could end up a whole lot worse than it is right now.

Here's you. You're looking for work and wondering how you're going to buy health insurance for your kids. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 lobbyists are scurrying around the Hill -- coercing your representatives to ignore you. Who wins that tug of war?

Advocates for lower cost health care have for some time argued that arming consumers with data about the costs of medical procedures would help drive down prices.

Insurers, however, have kept a tight lid on what they pay doctors and other health care providers, arguing that such information is proprietary and disclosure would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

But now a bevy of new Web sites can help consumers learn just how much services costs, reports the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The sites cull information from a variety of resources, including insurers, government agencies, Internet companies and health-care providers.

The sites, nearly two dozen of them, aren't perfect, the Journal notes, but they can provide a rough idea of typical costs in your area.

As the numbers continue to mount, the face of the uninsured gets more and complex now that there are 45.7 million uninsured people in the U.S. The TV talk show host Dr. Oz put a face on the uninsured with a recent episode focusing on the uninsured. He traveled to Houston with the help of 700 volunteers and the National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC) to run a free clinic that saw 2,000 uninsured patients in a single day. The NAFC has 1,200 free health clinics as members with six million volunteers nationwide including doctors, nurses and administrative staff.

Many of those who joined the ranks of the uninsured in the past two years were people who had good paying jobs, but lost them along with their health insurance as unemployment climbs near 10%. The largest chunk of the uninsured are working families with incomes near or slightly above the poverty line for a family of four -- $22,025. The working poor make up two-thirds of the uninsured.

COBRA, a federal law that mandates employers must continue to offer group insurance to people who lose their jobs as long as they pay for it, is often too expensive for the newly unemployed. The federal government did try to help these newly unemployed by temporarily lowering COBRA payments, but that benefit may soon be lost.

Health insurance companies, it appears, are uncannily skilled at creating cute, sweet poster children... for the other side of the health reform debate. Just two weeks ago, Colorado insurer, Rocky Mountain Health Plans denied health coverage of four-month-old Alex Lange because, by growth chart standards, Alex is obese.

Now, according to a report by The Denver Channel, a local affiliate of ABC News, little two-year old Aislin Bates of Erie, Colo. is getting a similar dose of rejection. This time, however, it is because she's underweight and, this time, it's a much bigger insurer: UnitedHealthcare.

In yet one more reason why the national dialog has changed from "health care reform" to "health insurance reform," Grand Junction, Colo. native Alex Lange was denied insurance coverage by Rocky Mountain Health Plans. Lange has never smoked, drank alcohol, nor has he ever been diagnosed with a chronic disease. In fact, he's only been to the doctor a few times for checkups, and has never missed a day of school or work in his life.

That impressive track record can be credited to the fact that Alex is just four months old and, in his short life, he has been fed nothing but breast milk. Nevertheless, he was denied health coverage because, according to growth charts, he's obese.

This post is really targeted to the self-employed and non-insured among you. (You lucky still-employed workers with health benefits, you're excused for now.) I just want to offer this interesting op-ed piece by Chicago-based health care writer J. Duncan Moore, Jr. as food for thought, because he gives good reasons for why it's not worth having health insurance -- and how it's possible to profit without it.

I have individual coverage by Anthem Blue Cross, who, without any notice, just upped my monthly premium 21 percent. To afford the payments, I moved from a $2,500 deductible to a $5,000 deductible last year. A month after that move, Blue Cross upped my premium 15 percent. My "who needs this crap" attitude was stoked after reading Moore's point of view.

After losing his job and seeing his $447-a-month COBRA coverage about to expire, Moore decided not to get an individual plan. His reasoning: he's a healthy person who eats right, sleeps enough and has no family history of major diseases. So, Moore decides, "Why shouldn't I create my own network and find providers who would give me a discount for paying cash?" Putting his plan into practice, he went to his doctor for a checkup. His visit was billed at $100 but discounted to $65, and routine cholesterol tests were marked down from $195 to $110. "I wrote two checks on the spot. There was no paperwork, no correspondence, no phone calls, no arguing about deductibles or co-pays, for me or for the doctor's office. And the doctor got his money immediately."

This is where he tips into a part of U.S. health care that is changing and needs to change: patients knowing the price of medical treatments upfront. " Most doctors don't like to cite a price in advance, but as the U.S. health system moves toward asking patients to pay a greater share of the bill, doctors are going to have to become more responsive to their patients' cost sensitivities."

An undertow of the current health care debate has been the suspicion that working Americans will be forced to cover the cost of health care for deadbeats who decline to work and pay for their own. I thought it would be interesting to look, state by state, at just how many people 16 years of age or older are actually in the work force as defined by the census bureau, i.e., working outside of the home or actively looking.

This graphic, from the latest American Community Survey by Bureau of the Census, shows a large disparity from region to region.

Why are so many people older than 15 not in the work force today? According to a 2004 study (current unemployment will change these numbers temporarily) the main reasons are:

37.9% are retired
19.1% are going to school
14.7% suffer from chronic illness or disability
13.2% are taking care of children/others at home
4.3% are unable to find work
3.6% are uninterested in working

Of all the bills that arrive in the mail, one of the worst has to be a medical bill.

Whether from your insurance company or medical provider, the expensive bills are difficult to understand and patients don't know if they're getting ripped off.

Add in the fact that by a conservative definition, 62% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were because of medical bills, with 92% of those debtors incurring more than $5,000 in unpaid medical bills, and a hospital bill is enough to send you back to the hospital.

With an 80% success rate of getting patients' bills lowered, Medical Cost Advocate, or MCA, negotiates with medical providers to get lower bills. It's a service that makes everyone happy, said Derek Fitteron, CEO and founder of MCA. Patients pay less and doctors get paid.

The U.S. Census Bureau threw more fuel on the health insurance reform fire Monday when it released its statistics on which states have the most uninsured people.

Only 4.1% of people in Massachusetts don't have health insurance, making it the most-insured state, thanks, at least in part, to a law passed two years ago that requires residents to buy health insurance.

"Massachusetts is a microcosm of what the Democrats want to do on a national level," Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, told CNNMoney.com