You've probably seen the latest US jobless numbers—533,000 jobs lost in November.

Many of those people will lose their health coverage along with their jobs. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured has estimated that for each one percent rise in unemployment, another 1.1 million people become uninsured, and one million enroll in Medicaid and SCHIP... Meaning that since this time last year, roughly four million have either lost their coverage or went on to one of those public programs because of job loss (and that doesn't count people whose employers are cutting back on health benefits, or who can no longer afford their share of the premiums).

We fear we'll be reminding you of these numbers for some months to come.