New data released by the Census Bureau shows that there has been a record increase in the number of people without health insurance. Nearly one in six US residents, or about 50 million people, were uninsured in 2009, according to the report. Previously the number of uninsured Americans was at 46.3 million and authorities say the reasons for the jump include job loss, companies axing health care benefits, and families cutting costs.

Another reason could be that it costs more. Statistics show that workers pay 47% more to keep their families insured than they did in 2005. “Eventually, more people will be covered if everything goes the way it should starting in 2014,” Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers, told USA Today. “But that’s four years away, and there’s going to be a lot of financial pain and economic burden before 2014.” In 2014, the newly passed health care bill will take effect and some say this report will increase support of that move.  “If ever one needed an affirmation about how essential the Affordable Care Act is, this is that affirmation,” Ron Pollack, executive director of the health consumers group Families USA, told USA Today. “The clear message for people now is that help will be on the way.”

Healthcare reform may have won the votes it needed in Congress, but it has yet to win the support of public opinion. The latest poll conducted by USA Today/Gallup found that 56% of people disapprove of the new law. “The White House and its allies won the legislative debate. They lost the debate in the court of public opinion,” Robert Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told USA Today.

This increase in uninsured Americans isn’t a complete surprise since layoffs have soared. Some of the findings of the report include:

* Those in low-income households are three times more likely to be uninsured than those with an income over $75,000.

* Among race groups, Asian households had the highest median income in 2009.

* In 2009, households in the West and Northeast had the highest median household incomes.

* The Northeast had the lowest uninsured rate in 2009.

Next Tuesday Missouri voters will tell the world what they think of the recently passed federal Health Care Reform Act when they head to the polls. Missourians are the first in the nation to vote on the issue. They’ll be voting on Proposition C, a law that would prohibit the government from forcing people or businesses to buy health insurance, according to Fox 4 News.

If it passes, the public would be saying that the government could not issue fines to those who refuse to buy health insurance. But, a no vote would mean they support health care reform. “If Proposition C is passed, it’s also going to cause a lot of the uninsured to continue going uninsured,” Mase Hakes, who plans to vote “no” on Proposition C, told Fox 4 News. “And no one will be forced to change their policy if they’re happy with something they already have, they don’t have to change it. This is just something to make it available for those who cannot.”

According to the Associated Press, a recent Mason-Dixon poll conducted for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV found that 61 percent of people opposed the federal health care law. Federal law says that the new health insurance program will go into affect in 2014.

A new initiative could help four to six million uninsured restaurant employees get coverage. According to the Chicago Tribune, the National Restaurant Association along with UnitedHealth Group Inc teamed up to make health insurance coverage easier for restaurant workers to get. The move comes three years before the US government will require everyone to have health insurance and will help roughly ten percent of the uninsured workforce.

An array of insurance plans geared toward the restaurant industry will be unveiled by officials. Plans will be released first in Pennsylvania and Colorado, then expanded to California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and other states within the upcoming year. Eventually the plan will encompass the whole year. “Because of the narrow profit margins of the restaurant business, it has been an ongoing real challenge for our industry to find affordable [insurance] products they could offer to employees,” said Dawn Sweeney, chief executive of the influential restaurant group, which represents about 380,000 employers nationwide, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Officials from UnitedHealthcare say they’ve been working on the program for two years. “We hope that by working together, we can make inroads in covering the people who don’t have insurance,” said Austin Pitman, chief growth officer for UnitedHealthcare, according to the Nation’s Restaurant News. He says the program will also offer a 24-hour health care hotline and wellness programs. The NRA’s chairman of the board, Mike Gibbons believes that health care reform will put a huge burden on the restaurant industry, but this plan may alleviate some of that. “The cost of health care reform could be potentially devastating,” he said. “The alliance will give lower cost health care alternatives.”

The restaurant industry employs nearly 13 million people around the country, but has one of the lowest levels of health care coverage. Sweeney says that’s why identifying health care was identified as a top concern of the association. So what’s included in the plan? According to reports restaurant owners and employees will have a web portal dedicated to them to shop for UnitedHealth insurance products. Restaurant owners could use the site to find plans for their employees, and the site would also offer individual plans for workers whose workplace doesn’t offer the benefit of health insurance. A variety of employer-sponsored plans would be available including plans that offer coverage for preventative care, routine medical visits, catastrophic events and more.

Two studies came to two very different conclusions when it comes to healthcare reform’s impact on jobs. The Center for American Progress released results that showed four million new jobs would be created over the next decade as a direct result of health care reform. On the other side of the spectrum is a study done by the Heritage Foundation, predicting that 690,000 jobs would be eliminated due to health care reform. While the new law’s impact on jobs may be debated, it’s easier to tell how certain professions will be impacted.

For instance, insurance agents are likely to see increased demand since the 32 million Americans currently without insurance will need to purchase some. That rule goes into affect in 2014. Anyone who doesn’t own insurance by then will be forced to pay a $695 fine. On the downside, the reform could mean less money will be left to pay commissions for insurance agents.

As far as doctors are concerned, some will benefit from increased Medicare payments. Many physicians will be eligible for incentive payments equal to 10 percent if they meet certain requirements. However, some argue that those payments are still too low when you factor in the costs of many procedures. Since the healthcare debate remains very heated, it’s hard to determine what the outcome will be. Americans are probably best off researching the facts, and making their own decisions.

The government is back at it, with the ‘it’ being health insurance negotiations. After a short breather and a regrouping of pro and con forces, President Obama has proposed a new health insurance bill that will cost $950 billion over 10 years. There are a lot of questions, of course, concerning how to pay for the almost trillion dollars of expense, but that will need a lot more debate. In the meantime, consumers want to know what this bill means for their families and their household expenses.

In other words, consumers want to talk about the nitty gritty of how these proposals are going to impact their ability to get and/or keep health insurance and how much it will cost. All the partisan bickering is getting tiresome for many consumers, but they will have to listen to a lot more before a health care bill ever makes it to the Obama’s desk.

In the meantime, the same consumer question remains: what will it cost ME? The new Obama plan remains as ambitious as the old plan. The White House says the new Obama plan makes health insurance more affordable for those Americans in the lower to middle income tax bracket. The plan would add approximately 31 million people to health insurance plans by offering tax credits to offset the cost of the policy. In addition, the Medicaid program would be expanded. Medicaid is funded with both federal and state funds.

The Obama plan also includes new taxes. One of the taxes is on high value insurance plans often called “Cadillac Plans”. A 40 percent tax would be charged on insurance plans that cost more than $27,500 a year and would start in 2018. Fees are placed on drug makers too.

In addition, there is a mandate ordering all Americans to carry health insurance. This particular provision in the bill is highly unpopular with some consumers. People who refuse to get health insurance would have to pay the higher of a 2.5 percent income tax as a penalty or a flat annual fine of $695. There is an exemption for lower income people. The purpose of the mandate is to force healthy people into the insurance pool so that health insurance premiums do not have to go significantly higher.

Yet those who have interpreted the financial impact of the Obama plan say that health insurance premiums will increase by as much as 39 percent.

Another provision in the bill is that employers with more than 50 people on the payroll are required to offer health insurance to employees. If the employer fails to offer insurance then the workers will get a government subsidy to purchase insurance elsewhere and the employer must pay a $2,000 fine per worker.

Senior citizens would see cuts in Medicare Advantage too. This is a program that offers Medicare benefits through private insurance.

There is no public option in the Obama plan.

What happens now? That is the big question. The President convened a bipartisan summit but most do not expect much bipartisan support to come out of it. But President Obama has made one thing clear: He expects some kind of health care overhaul bill to be passed in the near future.

Apparently, certain liberal groups have taken aim at Senator Max Baucus through some targeted health-care ads, which have appeared on television. The focus of progressives is to get a more liberal health care bill the attention they feel it deserves.