PHA-Exchange> Press Release: Half of all US bankruptcies caused by medical bills

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 From: Lida Lhotska [mailto:lida.lhotska at gifa.org] 

We are sending you a press release on a landmark study published today in
the on-line edition of Health Affairs. It reveals that over half of all US
bankruptcies result from unpaid medical bills and illness. Seventy-five
percent of those bankrupted by medical bills actually had insurance at the
time they got sick.


[You can find the paper and fact sheet on-line at www.pnhp.org/bankruptcy.
The password is "uninsured."]

President Bush proposals are designed to shift even more of the cost of health 
care onto sick
patients. Obviously, these plans will only exacerbate the incidence of
medical bankruptcy.


The real solution is "Medicare for All": comprehensive,
fiscally-conservative, single payer national health insurance. Everybody
In, Nobody Out!


Good Morning America (see study author Steffie Woolhandler Feb. 2nd, during
the first half-hour), New York Times, Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune,
Associated Press, Time, US News and World Report and many other media are
already committed to reporting the bankruptcy study.


We encourage you to forward the release to newspapers, radio and TV news
programs, and interested organizations in your area.


Quentin Young, MD                                  Ida Hellander, MD
Volunteer National Coordinator, PNHP    Executive Director, PNHP


"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking
and most inhuman," Martin Luther King, Jr. (Medical Committee for Human
Rights Convention, 1966).

Physicians for a National Health Program

www.pnhp.org
pnhp at aol.com


_________________________________________________________________


PHYSICIANS FOR A NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM PRESS RELEASE


Illness and Medical Bills Cause Half of All Bankruptcies -


2 Million Americans Financially Ruined Each Year


Most of Those Bankrupted by Illness Are Middle Class and Have Insurance


Study Highlights Need for National Health Insurance

Contacts:


David Himmelstein, M.D., Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., (617) 665-1032
Nick Skala, (312) 782-6006


Illness and medical bills caused half (50.4 percent) of the 1,458,000
personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published today as a
Web Exclusive by the journal Health Affairs. The study estimates that
medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually - counting
debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.


Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance.
More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting
illness. However, 38% had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time
they filed for bankruptcy.


Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56% owned a home
and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced
breadwinners to take time off from work - losing income and job-based
health insurance precisely when families needed it most. Families in
bankruptcy suffered many privations - 30% had a utility cut off and 61%
went without needed medical care.


The research, carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and
Harvard Medical School, is the first in-depth study of medical causes of
bankruptcy. With the cooperation of bankruptcy judges in five Federal
districts (in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas) they
administered questionnaires to bankruptcy filers and reviewed their court
records.


Dr. David Himmelstein, the lead author of the study and Associate Professor
of Medicine at Harvard commented: "Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one
serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were
average Americans who happened to get sick."


Today's health insurance policies - with high deductibles, co-pays, and
many exclusions - offer little protection during a serious illness.
Uncovered medical bills averaged $13,460 for those with private insurance
at the start of their illness. People with cancer had average medical debts
of $35,878.


"The paradox is that the costliest health system in the world performs so
poorly. We waste one-third of every health care dollar on insurance
bureaucracy and profits while 2 million people go bankrupt annually and we
leave 45 million uninsured" said Dr. Quentin Young, National Coordinator of
Physicians for a National Health Program. "With national health insurance
("Medicare for All"), we could provide comprehensive, lifelong coverage to
all Americans for the same amount we are spending now and end the cruelty
of ruining families financially when they get sick."


Copies of the paper are available on-line at www.pnhp.org/bankruptcy
The password is "uninsured"
"Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy," Himmelstein et al,
Health Affairs Web Exclusive, February 2, 2005.


Physicians for a National Health Program is an organization of 12,000
physicians. PNHP has chapters and spokespeople across the U.S. For
contacts, call 312-782-6006



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