Daily Dose of Common Sense

If you don’t think our health care industry needs a major overhaul, consider the facts from a new study just released: more than 60% of bankruptcies filed are the result of families unable to cope with overwhelming medical bills. And, this percentage is expected to rise since the study was completed before the recession.

Interestingly, the majority weren’t folks without health insurance. 78% of the people had insurance, but were crippled by co-payments, holes in their coverage, and deductibles.

“Unless you’re a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you’re one illness away from financial ruin in this country,” says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. “If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy…”

And, when people are forced to declare bankruptcy, you know who ends up paying in the long run. So, it makes more sense to find a way to make medical care more affordable for people before they sink into financial ruin.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Health, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.