Losing Ground: How the Loss of Adequate Health Insurance Is Burdening Working Families: Findings From the Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Surveys, 2001-2007

Highlights declining health coverage and rising deductibles for American adults and the implications for medical costs, debt burdens, and access to health care. Examines socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the uninsured and underinsured

Health Coverage for Aging Baby Boomers: Findings From The Commonwealth Fund Survey of Older Adults

Examines healthcare quality and access by baby boomers in working families. Offers recommendations for expanding coverage, including options for savings accounts and early participation in Medicare

Rite of Passage? Why Young Adults Become Uninsured and How New Policies Can Help

Assesses the scope of the health insurance problem facing young adults, its causes and implications, and offers policy changes that could help them stay insured as they make the transition to independent living

Squeezed: Why Rising Exposure to Health Care Costs Threatens the Health and Financial Well-Being of American Families

Examines U.S. healthcare costs compared with other industrialized countries, individual health insurance coverage, individual market regulations, and the impact of high deductible plans on the health of individuals with chronic disease

Gaps in Health Insurance: An All-American Problem

Presents findings from a survey that examines health insurance coverage, rising healthcare costs, and the health and financial consequences to families that experience breaks in insurance

Associated Absorption Lines in the Radio-Loud Quasar 3C 351: Far-Ultraviolet Echelle Spectroscopy from the Hubble Space Telescope

As one of the most luminous radio-loud quasars showing intrinsic ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray absorption, 3C 351 provides a laboratory for studying the kinematics and physical conditions of such ionized absorbers. We present an analysis of the intrinsic absorption lines in the high-resolution ($\sim$ 7 km/s) far-UV spectrum which was obtained from observations with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The spectrum spans wavelengths from 1150 \AA to 1710 \AA, and shows strong emission lines from O VI and Ly$\alpha$. Associated absorption lines are present on the blue wings of the high-ionization emission doublets O VI $\lambda\lambda$ 1032,1038 and N V $\lambda\lambda$ 1238,1242, as well as the Lyman lines through Ly$\epsilon$. These intrinsic absorption features are resolved into several distinct kinematic components, covering rest-frame velocities from -40 to -2800 km/s, with respect to the systemic redshift of $z_{em}=0.3721$. For the majority of these absorption line regions, strong evidence of partial covering of both the background continuum source and the BELR is found, which supports the intrinsic absorption origin and rules out the possibility that the absorption arises in some associated cluster of galaxies. The relationship between the far-UV absorbers and X-ray `warm' absorbers are studied with the assistance of photoionization models. Most of the UV associated absorption components have low values of the ionization parameter and total hydrogen column densities, which is inconsistent with previous claims that the UV and X-ray absorption arises in the same material. Analysis of these components supports a picture with a wide range of ionization parameters, temperatures, and column densities in AGN outflows.Comment: 27 pages with 5 figures, accepted by Ap

Far-UV Observations of NGC 4151 during the ORFEUS-SPAS II Mission

We observed the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4151 on eleven occasions at 1-2 day intervals using the Berkeley spectrometer during the ORFEUS-SPAS II mission in 1996 November. The mean spectrum covers 912-1220 A at ~0.3 A resolution with a total exposure of 15,658 seconds. The mean flux at 1000 A was 4.7e-13 erg/cm^2/s/A. We identify the neutral hydrogen absorption with a number of components that correspond to the velocity distribution of \ion{H}{1} seen in our own Galaxy as well as features identified in the CIV 1549 absorption profile by Weymann et al. The main component of neutral hydrogen in NGC 4151 has a total column density of log N_HI = 18.7 +/- 1.5 cm^{-2} for a Doppler parameter b=250 +/- 50 km/s, and it covers 84 +/- 6% of the source. This is consistent with previous results obtained with the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope. Other intrinsic far-UV absorption features are not resolved, but the CIII* 1176 absorption line has a significantly higher blueshift relative to NGC 4151 than the CIII 977 resonance line. This implies that the highest velocity region of the outflowing gas has the highest density. Variations in the equivalent width of the CIII* 1176 absorption line anticorrelate with continuum variations on timescales of days. For an ionization timescale <1 day, we set an upper limit of 25 pc on the distance of the absorbing gas from the central source. The OVI 1034 and HeII 1085 emission lines also vary on timescales of 1-2 days, but their response to the continuum variations is complex. For some continuum variations they show no response, while for others the response is instantaneous to the limit of our sampling interval.Comment: 4 pages, 2 PostScript figures, uses emulateapj.sty, apjfonts.sty. To appear in the Astrophysical Journal (Letters) special issue for ORFEU