Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Medical Debts the Cause for Bankruptcy?
Half of U.S. bankruptcy filers say that out-of-pocket medical expenses led to their financial hardship -- and most of the people had health insurance, according to a Harvard University study.Recent posts on this site have discussed the difficulty researchers have had in trying to understand the underlying causes of bankruptcies. This study appears to be different because it interviewed persons that filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to provide context for the bankruptcy filings.
For the study, researchers surveyed 1,771 filers in five states, and as many as 54.5 percent cited medical expenses as a reason for filing. In addition, the study showed about a 30-fold increase in medical expense-related bankruptcies since 1981.Researchers interviewed 931 of the filers to glean more financial, insurance and medical information. They also viewed financial data from public court records and calculated out-of- pocket expenses, which didn't include insurance premiums.
The noted items above give me initial pause, because interviews weren't conducted across the board and 'out of pocket expenses' were calculated. Without having viewed the report in detail, (and relying on a reporter's interpretation) it is not reasonable to draw any conclusions.
However, this report is already rousing the politicians. The backdrop to this report appears to be the state of America's health care industry.
Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the health-care system is creating ``tragic burdens'' for families. ``The new study is powerful evidence of the need for a new direction in health care. The problem has undoubtedly grown much worse in three years since the study was conducted,'' he said.
Bankruptcy legislation (discussed in previous posts) is also in the political realm. Specifically, how to handle medical debts in bankruptcy?
``Senator Grassley has reintroduced the bill that is widely known as the credit industry `wish list.' It makes no distinction between people who file for bankruptcy after melting down credit cards at the mall and people who have been severely ill and run up debts because they were seriously ill,'' Warren said.
Lastly, a developing theme of this blog is to 'follow the money' or the ideas. In this case, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's mission can be found at this link. The first one strikes me as (probably) the mission/fund which supported this study:
To assure that all Americans have access to quality health care at reasonable cost.
While that sounds good, I would like to know how this vision is to be carried out...
