Study: 60 Percent of Personal Bankruptcies Fueled by Medical Bills
Monday Jun 08, 2009Study: 60 Percent of Personal Bankruptcies Fueled by Medical Bills in General Healthcare
As President Obama continues calling
for health care reform, the report published in the American
Journal of Medicine brought even more urgency to the
debate.
Researchers from Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University surveyed 2,134 random families who filed for bankruptcy between January and April 2007, finding that 62% had crushing levels of medical debt.
Now, consider that the survey predates the economic crisis. And that 75 percent of these families had health insurance. Most of them, the paper stated, were “well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations.”
The phenomenon of ‘underinsurance’ is becoming more and more common. A 2007 Commonwealth Fund study reveals that 25 million Americans have inadequate health coverage, whether they realize it or not.
Hopefully this growing trend, along with the 50 million who have no health insurance at all and these current bust times will push Congress to meet the August 1 deadline for health care reform.
