The health care system in the United States, and its many problems, is a big issue for many voters.

One of the biggest issues in this year's presidential election is health care. To have "health insurance" means that if you get sick or injured, or need any kind of medical care, at least some of the costs are paid for by an insurance company. Many Americans have health insurance through their employers, who pay part or the entire monthly fee, called a "premium." The insurance company makes money because it gets monthly premiums from all of its customers, but only some of them have medical problems. Customers pay their premiums in case they do have medical problems. The elderly are covered by a government program called Medicare, and another program called Medicaid covers the very poor.

As you can see, health care premiums have gone up a lot in the past few years. How do you think this affects people and businesses? Employers, especially smaller companies, are having a harder time paying for workers' premiums, and people are having to pay more expenses from their own pockets. The average cost of health insurance for a family is about $12,000 a year. But without health insurance, a family that has a very serious illness or accident can end up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to hospitals. And the number of people with no insurance is going up. There are about 45.7 million people without health insurance, which is about 15 percent of the population. Many of these people are forced to go to the emergency room even for non-emergency illnesses, just so they can get treated.

The United States spends more on health care than any country in the world. But Americans still lag behind other countries in overall health and living the longest. In most wealthy countries, the government pays for everyone's health care. Do you think our government should do this? Let's find out what the two main presidential candidates think about health care.