The U.S. economy shed 240,000 more jobs in October, bringing the jobless rate to a 14.5-year high. And when people lose their jobs, they (and their spouses and children) often lose their health insurance.

The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured estimates that for each one percent rise in unemployment, another 1.1 million people become uninsured, and 1 million enroll in Medicaid and SCHIP (assuming that states don't start slashing Medicaid as their budgets squeeze). So as the unemployment rate went from 6.1 percent in September, to 6.5 percent in October, we estimate that slightly more than 400,000 people lost their coverage. In 2007, about 46 million Americans had no health coverage, and millions more had inadequate coverage.

So far this year, 1.2 million jobs have been lost. We figure that's at least 1.2 million reasons for President-elect Obama to view expanding health coverage not just as a moral priority, but as an economic imperative as he lays out the priorities for his administration.