A year ago, our nation's economic situation was almost the polar opposite of today. While the economy was slowly expanding, unemployment rates remained low.

According to a survey from the UCLA Center for Health Policy, the number of uninsured in California was lower in 2007 than in 2005, likely due to a healthy economy.

In 2007 the uninsured rate decreased to 19.5 percent versus 20.2 percent in 2005, as reported by the Sacramento Bee. Though that's not a significant change, it is clearly an improvement which can be attributed to the number of people covered with group health insurance.

The downturn of the economy and higher rates of unemployment are likely factors that cause uninsured rates to increase. Considering the current state of our economy, it seems weird to consider the much healthier situation we were in as recent as last year.

The lead author of the UCLA survey, E. Richard Brown, stated "We're looking at the final yer of an economic expansion (2007), and yet the gains in coverage were small. If the employer-based system can't increase health insurance in good times, how will they do it in bad?" Now that's something to think about.