Some 47 million Americans, 15.8% of the population, don’t have health insurance.

These are mainly people in jobs that don’t offer benefits: people between jobs, part-timers, the self-employed and lots of folks who work for small businesses.

The U.S. government spends nearly $700 billion each year on health care, mainly for Medicare (which covers nearly all older Americans), Medicaid (which helps cover those who are very poor) and care for veterans.

Meanwhile private health costs amount to about $1.1 trillion every year. About six in ten Americans get health insurance from their employer.

And just in case you hadn’t noticed, individuals shell out for health care too. It’s usually for deductibles, co-pays, premiums and drugs that aren’t covered by insurance. For an unfortunate group of Americans, it’s what they have to pay when they have a very serious illness or injury and basically their insurance basically runs out.

The U.S. health care system is incredibly complicated. Essentially, it’s not a ‘system’ at all – it’s a patchwork of private insurance and government programs like Medicare. There are holes in the system – and there’s duplication as well.

Health care costs have been rising faster than inflation for decades (they went up 6.7 percent in 2006). This will probably get worse. Government experts project health spending could double in 10 years

This presents a huge burden for business and it’s a budget-buster for the government, but frankly you’ll be on the line too.Business faced with spiraling health care costs sometimes cut benefits or raises or may even cut back their work force. Government needs to get the money from someone to cover health care costs. Guess who?

Most experts say expensive new treatments, procedures and drugs, along with an aging population are the major reason health care costs are shooting upward, but everyone also agrees that there’s a lot of inefficiency in the system too.

Sources: Census Bureau, Health Insurance 2006; Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Health Expenditures Data; Government Accountability Office, The Nation's Long-Term Fiscal Outlook April 2008; Kaiser Family Foundation, Trends and Indicators in the Changing Health Care Marketplace