"I just don't see too well and I put up with it"

An outdated glasses prescription is just one of several sacrifices Charles Worboys says he makes in order to survive without health insurance.

"Twenty years without health insurance, you really learn you are at risk if anything serious should happen to you, you're going to lose everything," he says.

Worboys lost his adjunct professor job at Rockford Business College last year. Even before that, working part-time made him ineligible to join a company plan. A study just released by Heartland Alliance, shows one-in-six Rockford residents like Worboys, don't have health insurance. Making Crusader Community Health's sliding discount a viable option.

"Our community is becoming more impoverished more and more people are losing their jobs along with the health care benefits not only with themselves but their families," says Linda Niemiec, Crusader's Vice President of Development.

Crusader's uninsured clientele soared 45-percent from last year. Many lost jobs and are now on Medicaid. The system is now looking at adding a fourth location to be built in Loves Park, and will consider expanding hours and offering more discounted drugs.

"We all recognize the growing number and need of people without insurance so we're all trying to respond accordingly and hope the recognition extends to whatever health care reform is being decided soon," says Niemiec.

Crusader doctors see about 40-thousand patients a year. Worboys is one of them. He says the 20-dollar co-pay does help. But not enough to shell out for new pair of glasses.

Statewide, more people are also living without health insurance. Washington-based Families USA just announced nearly 161-thousand Illinois residents lost their insurance this year.