Medical debt is pushing Americans into homelessness (email newsletter snippet plus an article)

[Celerity]

the newsletter email part (there is no ink):

Earlier this year, my wife and I began receiving a series of medical bills for visits we were certain had been covered and paid by our insurance weeks—in some cases, months—earlier. As the debt started piling up, we began to panic. What was happening? We quickly learned that, due to a glitch in her employer’s benefits system, we’d been booted from our coverage. Not just going forward, but retroactively for the past year and a half. After weeks of sleepless nights, tense phone calls and negotiations, and legal wrangling, we were able to fix the situation and avoid thousands of dollars of medical debt.

But we’re still dealing with it. Just this morning, I had to contact our provider because another bill had fallen through the cracks. The automated system was supposed to make life simpler for her employer and for us, instead it had led to weeks of headaches and labor. We were lucky that we had the time and resources to figure out what exactly went wrong and to fix the problem.

It would’ve been so easy to fall under an avalanche of debt with no real hope for clawing our way out (certainly not with a journalist’s salary). That experience was on my mind this morning as I read through the latest story by KFF Health News, spotlighting the thousands of Americans being pushed into homelessness by medical debt.

As you’ll read below, “Nationwide, about 100 million people have some form of health care debt. Of those, about 1 in 5 said the debts have forced them to change their living situation, including moving in with friends or family, according to a 2022 KFF poll.” As the cost of healthcare and housing both climb, millions of families are living on the edge. Medical bills can decimate credit scores, making apartments unattainable. But as you’ll read, some states are trying to address the crisis.

What’s on your mind? Got a topic you want covered in a future newsletter? Shoot me a note at [e-mail]

the article

https://www.reckon.news/news/2023/09/a-father-dreamed-of-a-home-for-his-family-medical-debt-nearly-pushed-them-onto-the-streets.html

snip

A Downward Spiral

Medical debt can undermine housing security in several ways. For some, it depresses credit scores, making it difficult to get a lease or a mortgage. Last year, about 1 in 8 U.S. consumers with a credit report had a medical debt listed on it, according to the nonprofit Urban Institute.

Patients with chronic medical conditions may fall behind on rent or home payments as they scramble to keep medical debts in check to preserve access to health care. Many hospitals and other providers will turn away patients with outstanding bills, KFF Health News found. Denise Beasley, who also assists clients at CEDP in Denver, said many older people, who typically depend most on physicians and medications, believe they must pay their medical and pharmacy bills before anything else. “The elderly are terrified,” she said.

For others, such debt can compound financial struggles brought on by an accident or unexpected illness that forces them to stop working, jeopardizing their health coverage or ability to pay for housing. In Seattle, researchers found widespread medical debt among residents in homeless encampments. And those with such debt tended to experience homelessness two years longer than encampment residents without it.

More broadly, people with medical debt are more likely to say the debt has caused them to be turned down for a rental or a mortgage than people with student loans or credit card debt, according to a 2019 nationwide survey of renters, homebuyers, and property owners by real estate company Zillow.

snip

[area51]

1. This.

The US desperately needs to go to universal healthcare but I don't see it ever happening.

[gopiscrap]

2. this is such fucking bullshit every other nation has

universal health care. At age 34 I had cancer which was a relapse. I was cut off of insurance and racked up 194K in medical debt (1991 dollars) i was at the point of not being treated because of the debt. I kept on filing bankruptcy to stop collections and keep on getting access. I was charged with abusing the US Bankruptcy code and sentenced to 13 months in a federal prison.

On the flip side I was born in Germany and as an infant I contracted encephalitis and was in the hospital for 5 months (7 weeks in ICU) and my parents 1959 bill was 143.00 that's because Germany has universal health care.

That demented greedy bastard Reagan, is the one we can think for shooting down our possibility of universal. He did commercials against it for the AMA and campaigned against it.

[honest.abe]

3. Our medical system is a mess.

I have noticed just in past couple of years that medical care at our Kaiser Permanent facility has declined dramatically. Doctors keep resigning, getting an appointment for physical takes months, the facility always seems extremely overcrowded and Drs rush to get us out the door. But the costs keep going up.

If we ever have a big medical emergency I really wonder if we will be covered completely.

[leftstreet]

4. DURec

[crickets]

5. K&R for the late night crowd. nt