Bankruptcy is in fact what a growing number of Americans have already encountered through the health care system as it now functions. In June of this year, the American Journal of Medicine released a new study's findings based on figures available from 2007. The results of this study point out the debilitating role of medical expenses in families and individuals who must file for personal bankruptcy. Labeled as the "first-ever national random sample of bankruptcy filers", the study's authors worked hard to maintain conservative controls on their findings and followed the numbers up with fact-finding interviews with a significant portion of the sample's participants. Research indicated that a staggering 62% of personal bankruptcy filings were disproportionately driven by medically related expenses.
Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., one of the study's authors, appeared in a CNN interview saying "If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that is the major finding in our study." As a counterbalance Dr. Woolhandler's bracing conclusions, the nonpartisan policy research foundation, the Center for Studying Health System Change, voiced mild skepticism of the study's weighting of medical causes for bankruptcies. But they also offered little comfort with their statistic that 1 in 5 American families are "unduly strained" by medical bills.
In the 20 year span from 1981 to 2001, there was a major jump in the percentage of families filing for medically related bankruptcy, a rise from 8% to 46%. The earlier numbers may not have accurately reflected the role of medical bills in the bankruptcy filings, because court records were the means through which the statistics were gathered. Court records do not include the origin of debt that was owed to collection agencies, quite possibly obscuring the role of medical bills. Nevertheless, the American Medical Journal's most recent 2007 figures of nearly 62% medically related bankruptcy, indicate an unprecedented escalation over a 6 year period. Add that trend to what is still the unknown fallout of our economy's current recession and we may have some even more frightening revelations.
The stigma that hangs over personal bankruptcy in our country is in part due to the public's common misunderstanding of what the average filer looks like; many people have a mental image of a hapless slouch. The American Journal of Medicine's study reveals this misapprehension for the untruth that it is. Most of the debtors surveyed were middle class, middle aged and college educated. 75% of the debtors had health insurance coverage at the onset of their financial and health problems. Typically this insurance left them with the commonplace gaps of high premiums, copayments, hefty deductibles and a range of uncovered medical services. It is important to note that policy rescission is a normative practice among medical insurance companies with 25% cancelling an individual's policy immediately upon a disability diagnosis and another 25% of companies cancelling within one year of the diagnosis.
This nation's long held axiom of "what is good for the middle-class is good for the country" could serve as a helpful guideline in healthcare reform. Every day there is an increasing number of middle class families struggling under the burden of medically related expenses through spiraling insurance premiums and large coverage gaps. Businesses struggle to maintain insurance plans for their employees, insurance that may turn out to be a misnomer as benefits and guaranteed coverage are downgraded in accordance with affordability. It is projected that in 2009, the U.S. will spend 17.6% of its gross domestic product on health care. And this is without taking into consideration all the hidden economic and societal costs of medically related bankruptcies.
Do yourself a favor as a good citizen and read the American Journal of Medicine's study in full. (You can find it quickly online at amjmed.com, Vol. 122, Issue 8, pp. 741 to 746.) Be informed, do some further fact scouting and let your congress representative and senator know that the average citizen wants and needs access to the quality of health insurance elected officials are privy to.br /> About the Author:
This author: Meg Brown is a writer based in South Carolina who is concerned about her state's open armed legislative history with payday lenders. She frequently consults with a knowledgeable acquaintance who is a wise bankruptcy attorney and encourages readers dealing with debt to visit this FAQ page at Notes from a Charleston SC Bankruptcy Lawyer.
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