Are you one big illness away from bankruptcy?

[RedEarth]

“The greatest health is wealth,” the classical Roman poet Virgil once said.

But to keep your health can cost you your wealth. In fact, it can drive you into bankruptcy.

A survey this month showed that in 2007, on the eve of the current recession, roughly two-thirds of bankruptcies in the United States involved people who were driven into insolvency because they could not keep up with their medical bills.

Although health care has been eclipsed by overdue mortgages and credit card debt as the primary cause of bankruptcy, it remains a potent driver of debt. And once the current wave of foreclosures abates, it could quickly regain its No. 1 status in the bankruptcy courts, unless something is done to fix the medical system first.

“Unless you’re Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” said David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard.

“For middle-class Americans, health insurance offers little protection. Most of us have policies with so many loopholes, co-payments and deductibles that illness can put you in the poorhouse,” Himmelstein said.

The study by Himmelstein and a team of researchers at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University shows that 62 percent of bankruptcies in 2007 were at least partly caused by problems involving health care. That’s up from 55 percent in 2001.

More than three-quarters of the people who were bankrupted for medical reasons had health insurance at the start of the “bankrupting illness,” according to the study, which will be published in The American Journal of Medicine in August. Most of them “were solidly middle class before financial disaster hit.” Two-thirds were homeowners, and three-fifths had gone to college.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/june/are_you_one_big_illn.php

[Captain Hilts]

1. It did my brother in financially. More folks that know it are one illness from disaster. nt

[TimesSquareCowboy]

2. A former co-worker of my wife, injured her knee, couldn't work,

employer had pitiful short-term disability, she blew through her FMLA and, voila, now she has no job or rights to a job and is getting evicted.

[DJ13]

3. Been there, already filed BK years back because of it

[Cleita]

4. Not me but I have a government plan health care, Medicare. My husband

did too and it took care of him during the last seven years of his life. If it hadn't been there, his medical expenses would have exceeded our income and we wouldn't have been able to pay for it. He wouldn't have been able to go back to work and neither could I then because he needed me to assist him with his treatment and take care of him. I want everyone to have what I have. Medicare for all is the only real solution. All the rest of the debate is just hot air.

[virgogal]

5. I'm on Medicare but 2 of my kids are walking a very fine line.

[izquierdista]

6. It shouldn't be called "insurance"

It should be called health bunco, because the charlatans running the scam have no intention of paying when you need to file a claim. It's as legitimate as the gypsy fortune teller, the guy who found a fat wallet right next to your foot, and the e-mail you got from Nigeria. People should just quit buying health "insurance" and save their money so they can get on a plane and go someplace, anyplace really, where medicine and treatment are less expensive when they need it.

[DKRC]

7. Happened to us years ago

We still haven't recovered financially, and not looking like we will anytime soon.

:banghead:

[nichomachus]

8. I am on Medicare

and have a very good supplemental plan THANKS TO MY UNION. However, my partner is still working, has a shitty BC plan. If anything happened to him, we'd be fucked because our income would be cut seriously. Also, he'd lose his job if he couldn't work -- and then the health plan would go away after 18 months.

[madrchsod]

9. already there.....