WESTERN NEWS ZONE......

Rising like a deadly tide, escalating health care costs will have caused 995,200 Californians to lose their health coverage between January 2008 and December 2010. In that same period, the number of Americans without health coverage is expected to climb by an estimated 6.9 million.

Those troubling statistics are cited in a new report, “The Clock Is Ticking: More Americans Losing Health Coverage,” from the consumer health organization Families USA, which says the most important factor causing the loss of health coverage is the rising cost of health care premiums. Although the economic downturn is contributing to the problem, it is skyrocketing premiums, up 119 percent from 1999 to 2008, that continue to have the greatest impact on family and employer health care costs. In comparison, the Consumer Price Index, which tracks general inflation, rose by only 29.2 per cent in the same period.

The report is the first-ever state-by-state projection of the number of people who will lose coverage between January 2008—the period immediately following the last Census Bureau report—and the end of the 111^th Congress in December 2010. The report says, for California during that time period, an estimated 995,200 people will have lost or will lose their health coverage.

From 2008 through 2010 in California:

• 6,380 people will lose their health coverage, on average, every week;
• 27,640 people will lose their health coverage, on average, every month; and
• 331,730 people will lose their health coverage every year.

• Max Capital Group Ltd. announced that, with the addition of California, Max America Insurance Company is now an eligible Inland and Ocean Marine insurer in all 50 states.

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  Max America Insurance Company is a subsidiary of Max Specialty, which is licensed as an admitted insurer in Delaware and approved to write business on a non-admitted basis in 49 states and the US Virgin Islands.