Health insurance is a prepaid subscription to a financial service that pays a portion or the sum of an individual's health care expenses. With the rising costs of health care, possessing medical insurance is progressively becoming a worldwide trend. Some areas are nevertheless experiencing a concomitant increase in insurance premiums, thereby affecting the percentage of insured individuals within a population. This has been a growing problem in the United States, where its 2002 Census estimates nearly 44 million uninsured people in America.