Most American Bankruptcies Include Extreme Medical Expenses
“Unless you’re Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He described the situation as “frightening” in a news release issued by the Physicians for a National Health Program. Himmelstein is lead author of a study to be published in the August 2009 issue of the American Journal of Medicine but the report can be found online now.
The study, conducted by researchers at Harvard’s medical and law schools, as well as researchers at Ohio University, found that, in 2007, two-thirds of all bankruptcies in the US involved medical expenses and related issues. When compared to bankruptcies in 2001, the presence of medical issues in bankruptcies jumped by almost 50%. Other findings include:
- 77.9% of all American families bankrupted by medical expenses were covered by medical insurance at the onset of the medical crisis leading to bankruptcy.
- 60% of those were insured by private insurers.
- Most families were “solidly middle class” before financial disaster occurred.
- Two-thirds of the adults filing for bankruptcies that included medical expenses owned their homes.
- Three-fifths of them enjoyed a college education.
- Even well-insured filers listed out-of-pocket medical expenses, including deductibles, co-payments, and uncovered services in amounts too high to cope with.
- The average bankrupt family with private medical insurance identified $17,749 in unpaid medical expenses.
- The average bankrupt family with no medical insurance coverage listed $26,971 in unpaid medical expenses.
- The average bankrupt family with private insurance coverage at the beginning of the illness but lost it during the struggle had $22,568 in unpaid medical expenses.
- Bankruptcy filings due to medical expenses were highest for those suffering from neurological disorders ($34,167, on average) and diabetes ($26,971).
- The single biggest expense for about 50% of all families filing for bankruptcy was hospital bills.
- Prescription drugs accounted for the largest single expense for 18.5% of bankruptcy filers.
The research team says it is important to note their study involves bankruptcies filed in 2007, before the current economic crisis began. The percentage of bankruptcies and unsustainable medical expenses are likely to increase dramatically for more recent years.
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a primary care physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, says discussion of medical reform needs to go further than merely covering the uninsured. Illness often strikes a family’s breadwinner and brings unemployment as a result. When jobs are lost, so, in most cases, is medical insurance coverage although this is exactly when it’s needed the most. Woolhandler is a co-author of the study.
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I would probably research my diagnosis, prognosis and cost of care if I were to be diagnosed with a complicated disease that my family would not have to suffer the horrible decision tree cascade that inevitably
This is why I’m happy that I live in a country with socialized medicine
You may think you would be able to research and make a good decision about a complicated disease. Problem is that many such illnesses, particularly neurological problems (such as stroke, Alzheimers, PSP) interfere with your ability to research your illness, assess the odds, and forecast probable costs. Furthermore, it can take months or even YEARS to get an accurate diagnosis so you have enough information to make a good decision, with many false starts. Generally your family winds up making the decisions and going broke along with you. I know this from experience–we’ve been down this road with my parents and my husband’s parents, and in all 4 cases we got the diagnosis after we were well into the decision tree.
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You’re blowing smoke if you think you’ll be on top of things when diagnosed with a devastating illness. You’re also blowing smoke when you think socialized medicine is the answer. What do you do if in a socialized medicine country when the government says you can’t have a treatment the doctor thinks you should have?
And when you can’t work, and can’t afford the health insurance premiums, nor the cost of care, what then?
How about when there is a treatment, that might work, but you can’t get it? Socialized medicine or not? Or development of a new treatment stops because there’s no money in it? Gov’t doesn’t develop new treatments, private industry does.
Now if you were a pregnant illegal alien that showed in an ER, you’d get life-sustaining treatment. Or if you were an incarcerated prisoner, you’d get the best medical care in the world.
If you’re an average Joe, plumber or six-pack, doesn’t matter, you suffer and wish for the day when the suffering stops. It’s population control, gotta love it.
If you don’t have your health, you have nothing.
The gov’t want to fix what the gov’t made, HMO and PPO mess. No thanks, our gov’t can stay out of my business, the countries business and other countries business.
Ron Paul is right! back to cash and insurance for catastrophic illness for AMERICAN CITIZENS. Be gone with health care system. WE ARE A COUNTRY OF FREE CHOICES….or we are suppose to be as soon as CONRESS start representing again.
You don’t have FREEDOM you dont have nothing.
No mandate without a public option. No mandate without a public option.
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That’s why I love alternative medicine!