Critical Condition: New PBS Documentary Highlights Lives of Uninsured Americans

Hector Cardenez,  a warehouse manager in Los Angeles with diabetes, opted to have his foot amputated before losing his job and insurance benefits.

In Austin, Texas, Karen Dove, lacking health insurance, suffered from abdominal pains for a year before finding a physician willing to treat uninsured patients. She eventually died of ovarian cancer at age 51.

Dove and Cardenez are two of four uninsured Americans profiled in Critical Condition, a PBS television documentary that premieres Sept. 30 (check local listings). Directed by Roger Weisberg, Critical Condition highlights a problem that affects 47 million Americans.

"There are many pre-Medicare-eligible retirees who lack health insurance,” Weisberg says. “I hope the film hastens the day when we consider health coverage a right of citizenship, instead of a private consumption good.”