What compassionate conservatism has wrought:

As employees continue to absorb more of their healthcare costs, an increasing number of people - even healthy ones - are drastically altering their lives simply to hold on to their insurance. They are delaying homeownership, putting off saving for their children's education, or otherwise sacrificing their financial security to guard against a catastrophic medical bill. Many people, especially lower and middle-class workers and the chronically ill, are beginning to spend a once-unimaginable share of their income on health coverage. In some cases, health costs have become the single biggest expense in family budgets. Between 2000 and 2004, the number of people spending more than 25% of their earnings on healthcare - a figure normally associated with homeownership - rose by nearly a fourth to 14.3 million people, according to Washington, D.C. based Families USA, a healthcare advocacy group. Over the same period, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, health premiums rose an average of 59%; federal data show the average employee's earnings rose 12.4%.