Here's a statistic guaranteed to make you sick: Health-care insurance costs rose 7.7 percent last year. As if anyone needs reminding, that was more than twice the rate of inflation in 2005 and equally far above the pay raises most workers received.

But maybe we should be happy. The 7.7 percent increase was the smallest since 2000 and was the third consecutive year in which the upward spiral of health costs slowed. Those numbers mirror the trend in Pittsburgh, where a March survey found companies in the region facing average increases of 9 percent, the first time in five years the hikes were below double digits.

So why isn't anyone celebrating? Because according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, health insurance premiums have jumped 87 percent over the past six years, to an average of $11,480 a year per family.

The rising tab for health care has become an issue of extreme concern to all but the wealthiest and is weighing especially heavily on this nation's employers, who pay 73 percent of the cost.

Some 175 million Americans -- 59.5 percent of us -- were covered by employer-subsidized health insurance last year, but that's down by more than four percentage points since 2000. Some 46.6 million Americans have no coverage at all. Many of them are the so-called working poor, just trying to keep from falling behind on the treadmill of life.

A solution to this seemingly intractable problem is elusive.

Some say the United States has created the best and the worst of all possible health-care systems, one in which virtually all medical maladies can be cured or alleviated but one whose cost is outstripping society's ability to pay for it.

Critics of the current system say this crisis proves the need for universal health care, funded by the federal government. Such a move would help by eliminating the huge share of health-care spending siphoned off by insurers. But employers still would shoulder a major share of the expense in other ways. It would not erase cost concerns by a long shot.

As it has developed in this country, modern health care is largely predicated on continuing development of new pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and diagnostic equipment, with less attention given to educational and preventive programs to keep individuals from getting sick in the first place.

While no one believes that preventive measures alone would cure what ails the health system, it is generally true that Americans are not doing enough to keep themselves healthy. And as long as we seek to reactively treat the symptoms and results of unhealthy lifestyles as if they existed in a vacuum, costs will continue to rise unchecked.

Because the current uncertain economic climate has many Americans worried about losing their jobs -- and, consequently, their insurance coverage -- any self-help prescription for the health-care system is likely to be greeted with little enthusiasm.

Still, most of us realize that change in the way health care is dispensed in this country is inevitable. The big question is whether the majority will be better off than we are now.