Illness, Medical Bills Cause 2/3rds of Personal Bankruptcies, Despite ACA
- 'Despite Promises of ACA, Study Shows Two-Thirds of Personal Bankruptcies Still Caused by Illness and Medical Bills.- "We need to move ahead from the ACA to a single-payer, Medicare for All system that assures first-dollar coverage for everyone." Julia Conley, Common Dreams, Feb. 7, 2019
A new study shows how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has failed to solve one of the major crises in the American for-profit health insurance system that it was supposed to help eradicate: bankruptcies related to high medical bills and other healthcare-related costs. The Consumer Bankruptcy Project (CBP) examined 910 bankruptcies that were filed between 2013 and 2016 and found that, similarly to before the ACA was passed in 2010, 66.5 percent of the bankruptcies were brought about by medical bills families were unable to afford or income loss due to illnesses.
"Unless you're Bill Gates, you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy." —Dr. David Himmelstein
- A majority of personal bankruptcy cases examined in a new study were brought about by high medical bills—just as most bankruptcy cases were before the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
About 530,000 American households continue to see their finances wiped out each year due to medical costs, according to the report, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health. "Unless you're Bill Gates, you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," said Dr. David Himmelstein, the study's lead author. "For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection. Most of us have policies with so many loopholes, copayments, and deductibles that illness can put you in the poorhouse. And even the best job-based health insurance often vanishes when prolonged illness causes job loss—just when families need it most."
The only solution to medical bankruptcies is a Medicare for All system, said Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), one of several national organizations that have led the fight for universal, government-funded healthcare for decades.
The ACA was a step forward, but 29 million remain uncovered, and the epidemic of under-insurance is out of control," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a member of PNHP's Board of Directors, in a statement. "We need to move ahead from the ACA to a single-payer, Medicare for All system that assures first-dollar coverage for everyone."
The study came out a day after the Commonwealth Fund released its own findings on the post-ACA healthcare system—namely, that more Americans with employer-based healthcare plans are under-insured, without continuous coverage all year, than were before the law was passed. Medical bills contributed to about 58 percent of bankruptcies between 2013 and 2016, while income loss due to illnesses or injuries were to blame for about 44 percent; many bankruptcy filers cited both as causes. The study's results were "virtually unchanged" from a similar report the CBP compiled from 2001 to 2007, PNHP said...-MORE.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/07/despite-promises-aca-study-shows-two-thirds-personal-bankruptcies-still-caused
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