Health Insurance Doesn’t Prevent Medical Bankruptcy
A sobering statement I found in the Austin Statesman:
Most people who file for bankruptcy because of medical bills are middle class, according to Baumer and others. The Harvard study, published by the journal Health Affairs, said three-fourths of those who filed had insurance at the onset of their illness.
Even so, co-pays, premiums and prescription expenses can overwhelm a patient or family, said Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Serious illness can also lead to job loss, and with it can go the health insurance, he said.
That doesn’t quite match the reality I’m writing from (I’m thankfully employed at a good job; it’s my wife who’s disable). I can’t help but wonder how many other folks are struggling because a health insurer has reneged on its promise to pay the medical bills.
The article also makes a passing reference to one other unpleasant reality my wife and I became acquainted with in the wake of her disability:
Ann Davis, who also is uninsured, worked three jobs while her husband tried to get on disability and a government-financed health insurance program to cover a liver transplant.
In my wife’s case, it wasn’t until a few days after the fifth anniversary of the incident that caused her to be disabled that she received her first SSDI check and Medicare card.
When the financial planners emphasize the need to build up an emergency fund (and to purchase long-term disability coverage), in case you have to be on your own, without income, without insurance, after a disability…they aren’t kidding!