Which is the upper limit on family out of pocket spending in the moderate masterpiece that is coming out of the Senate Finance Committee - see the full report by Robert Pear from today's NY Times here - probably does not mean that much to Senator Baucus so Wonks Anonymous would like to give him and the reader some perspective.

The median family Income in the US in 2007 was $61,355, call it $50,000 after taxes - and all you Libertarian geniuses out there should note that working folks do pay income taxes and payroll taxes and sales and excise taxes. Source here is Table B-33 of the 2009 Economic Report of the President - you can find the PDF using your browser.

$11,950 is 24% of $50,000.

What would you do if you suddenly got a bill for almost a quarter of your family's income?  Wonks Anonymous believes that this meets the definition of underinsured.

Remember that median means that half of the families have incomes less than $61,000 and probably have after tax incomes less than $50,000. So that would imply that at least half the families in the nation would be underinsured.

But Wonks Anonymous is rather of a pessimist. Perhaps he should say that half the families will be overinsured.