According to the recent estimates released by the Washington state Office of Insurance Commissioner, the total number of Washington state residents lacking health insurance might rise to unprecedented figures of 876,000 this year!

In a statement made on Monday by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, number of residents without health insurance has soared 21 percent, or 150,000 people, from last year figures - indicating that almost one in every five working-age adults lacks health insurance.

Calling the expected number of uninsured people "staggering," Kreidler expressed his concern over the critical situation, remarking that the problem was "much broader than a moral issue. It's an economic issue."

The estimated number of residents who would be lacking health insurance - the figures indicating a record rate for this decade - would include people who are likely to be dis-enrolled from the Washington Basic Health Plan by 2009-end.

For the overall uninsured rate in 2009, the maximum rate has been projected for adults in the age-group 19 to 64 years - thereby pointing to the ongoing decline in employer-provided coverage, employment rates and mounting cost of individual insurance.

Kreidler opines that economic adversities further divulge a deeper problem, which he says he foresaw between 2002 and 2004 - when the state's rate of uninsured increased in spite of a drop in unemployment, and thereby reflected that the system is lethally faulty!