(click image for larger) From AP via The Houston Chronicle:

The median household income was $48,200, a slight increase from the previous year. But the number of people without health insurance also increased, to 47 million.

Evelyn Brodkin, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said she expects the rising number of people without insurance to get more attention in the campaign. The share of Americans without health insurance hit 15.8 percent last year, up from 15.3 percent the previous year.

Johnson said the increase in the percentage of uninsured was mostly fueled by a decline in employer-provided health coverage. "It affects people in the middle, and it affects corporations," Brodkin said. "Especially those who compete globally, they are really hurting because they have to compete with companies that don't have huge health insurance bills for their labor force."

And they don't have huge health insurance bills because their countries are civilized enough to provide healthcare for their citizens? Has anyone out there gotten a job with full health insurance benefits lately?

The tipping point in the healthcare debate, I'm afraid, will come not when the needs of individual human beings are considered, but when the "needs" of General Motors to "compete" internationally outweighs the "need" of Blue Cross/Blue Shield to make a profit. Only when the MSM realizes that a single payer plan is "good for US business," will the debate take a positive turn.