Morning Edition today has two pieces on the underinsured - that would be people who are at risk for over 10% of their annual income in the event of serious illness or injury.

The first by the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation gives the details of a family that spent 45% of their not large income on medical bills last year. The second, by Jenny Gold, asks if the current reform proposals would help this problem.

Which question she answers sort of in the affirmative because the new law would ban lifetime and annual caps on insurance payments. An insurer could no longer cut you off after you spent $100,000 on an illness and so on.

Nevertheless the NPR reporter failed to read the detail of the law and to do some simple math. The law restricts the maximum annual spending for a family with health insurance to $11,950 - the amount is derived from the requirements for a High Deductible/Health Savings Account policy. The law also takes steps to encourage these value driven policies through taxes on gold plated comprehensive plans with lower out of pocket.

If we define an underinsured family as one that is at risk for 10% or more of their income from medical bills in the event of a serious illness then a family would need to clear $119,500 per year to be considered well insured. They could also choose to pay heavy taxes and get a gold plated plan. They would not be able to expect any subsidies for such a plan.

So far there are no plans to give government subsidies to help people meet the out of pocket requirements of their new plans. Wonks Anonymous expects that the slack will be made up by doctors and hospitals.