Nine years ago, Chicagoan Mark Emerson left his job with a large
company that offered group health coverage to pursue the American dream
and start his own business. He did not know that this would begin an
ordeal in which he was "charged back into the stone age” as
a customer of the private health insurance market. Mark and his wife
now pay more in health care costs than they do on their mortgage payments
and real estate taxes. Despite being two healthy
people, their insurance costs continue to climb. Though
he has reached the point where he can no longer afford his premiums,
Mark is unwilling to drop coverage and face the potential nightmare of
going without insurance. He feels stuck, and help is nowhere to be
found.
Mark is an American icon—a middle class entrepreneur. But he is just one of many middle class folks in cities across the country who struggle with similar situations. Escalating health care costs. The foreclosure crisis. The rising price of energy. Food prices and urban food deserts. Our perceived freedom as ordinary people to decide who to be, what to do, and how to live has increasingly drifted out of our control. We have to ask whether we are making progress as a country in improving our quality of life.
And, for that matter, what defines progress?
A report issued this month by the Columbia University Press and Social Science Research Council, titled “The Measure of America: American Human Development Report,” gives a fresh perspective on the concept of progress. It is the first and only report to combine the three issues Americans care about most -- health, education, and income -- in one measure.
