The Ignored Health Care Plight

President Obama has vowed to reboot the nation's health care system, but as author Gail Sheehy points out, he doesn't have a solution for the top problem: paying for chronic illnesses and long-term care, which accounts for 75 percent of the $2.2 trillion spent on health care annually. Sheehy's own experience with her husband Clay Felker's battle with cancer inspired her to speak out. "If the family can't bear the full costs of care, and nobody can give up a job and survive, the family spends down all their savings until they become eligible for Medicaid," she writes. "Middle-class families face stark choices during a grim chapter of their lives." Her proposed solution is a National Insurance Trust.