Harvard researchers link medical costs to personal bankruptcy -- even if people have health insurance
By John Amato Friday Jun 05, 2009 3:00pmOK, the Ben Nelsons out there need to stop mucking up the works, just pocket the cash they took from the health care industry and do the right thing because this study from Harvard is disturbing on so many levels.
Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers. And in a finding that surprised even the researchers, 78% of those filers had medical insurance at the start of their illness, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not Medicare or Medicaid. Medically related bankruptcies have been rising steadily for decades. In 1981, only 8% of families filing for bankruptcy cited a serious medical problem as the reason, while a 2001 study of bankruptcies in five states by the same researchers found that illness or medical bills contributed to 50% of all filings.
This newest, nationwide study, conducted before the start of the current recession by Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler of Harvard Medical School, Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School, and Deborah Thorne, a sociology professor at Ohio University, found that the filers were for the most part solidly middle class before medical disaster hit. Two-thirds owned their home and three-fifths had gone to college...read on
It would be nice to repeal that disgraceful bankruptcy bill, but first we need universal health care. And soon, because the country can't take much more of this.
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Mike Farrell (from MASH) is heavily involved in the Health Insurance problem we have in this country. After seeing him in a commercial I emailed him and told him my story. To my surprise he emailed me back and gave me a link to a guy he's working with who is heavily petitioning the government to give us all a one payer system so I could share my story with the president. Unfortunately I deleted the email I sent to him thinking it wouldn't amount to much so I really can't share it with all of you. I got an email from this guy asking me to write. I don't know what will come of it but it was pretty cool being able to have my experience passed on to our president.
...i'm still paying off an almost $5,000 bill, and i have insurance
love that deductible
The higher the premium the lower the deductible. The lower the premium the higher the deductible. It's all a mask. It all works in favor of the insurance companies. They make the same amount of money off of you either way. They just package it differently. With deductibles they just hope your use stops there so they make a larger profit. Either package you choose they are going to make a huge profit but they want to confuse you so they make a bigger profit. See how I confused you? That's how they work.
It's a shell game -- except there's no little ball.
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just a bankruptcy filing.
Seek treatment and end up living on the street.
Or die.
... you can still die and you family ends up living on the street.
Geez, who would think that when it comes to provide a service at a possible loss or increase profits, corporations chose the second. Without *ANY* piece of legislation forcing medical corporations to use any other criteria but corporate conduct, I am just at a loss for words why most Americans thought the medical corporations would behave any differently.
So what happened to that invisible hand and the wonderful anthropormorphized market working for us? I can't wait to read the next libertarian troll trying to make a case for... wait for it... more more aggressive deregulation and laissez faire by the government. LOL.
I got pretty angry the past two nights over the Tiller shit. Didn't mean anything by it. It's just a little frustrating when people can kill over ideology and we have to sit there and take it. I think I made some valid points as did you. No offense, we're fighting the same fight just some disagreements on how to deal with it.
I am pretty aware of the level of frustration... and I fully understand it. Sometimes it helps to vent and confront some people who are in the same side as you.
Just don't let any of these pieces of sh*t get the best of you. That is all... If we repay them in kind, we then lower ourselves to their level... and the fools gain some level of validation in their feeble minds.
The challenge for us is: How do we not only neutralize, but completely overpower these bigoted violent pieces of sh*t who are slowing us down as a society. And how do we do it in our own terms, w/o resorting to violence or their inhumane approaches?
I don't have an answer. I just know that whatever it is we have to do... can't be exactly what they are doing. Because then we are not better than they are. And that would be greatly disappointing.
Is it possible that these right wingers are trying to distract from the fact that corporate America owns and therefore controls everything? All those shilling for them are rich. Why would they give a rat's ass what happens to real people? Why would anyone except the wing nutters think that Limbo, O'Reilly, Beck et al. care about them? It's a ploy to distract from the real problem. All the regular people are good for is laundering money between the government and the corporations. It has become a farce. Damn. Not to mention that those who own the corporations are the same people who got all the tax breaks from Bush and his posse. Double damn.
As a UK citizen and a beneficiary of nationalized healthcare, I cannot help but feel sorry for all you decent, hard-working, tax-paying middle-aged, middle class Americans who get shafted by your so-called Healthcare system.
It is nothing but a cynical scam run by US Insurance companies with the aim of screwing you out of your health cover the moment you present with a major illness. It kills and bankrupts thousands of you every year. The British National Health Service is not perfect, but it certainly isn't third rate either.
Five years ago I was diagnosed with bi-lateral kidney tumors. I received swift and expert surgical attention. It saved my life. The skill of my NHS surgeon also spared me any need for dialysis or drugs. My lifestyle remains unchanged. Had I been a US citizen, the treatment I received would have cost $560,000, and I would now find myself with no affordable health insurance. I count my blessings to have been born in the UK and to be eligible for NHS care. Nobody in this country has ever been made bankrupt because of illness.
Yeah and when the healthcare system forces a middle class family to go bankrupt they are considered "losers" by the Republicans who have "Cadillac care". Fucking pigs.
The "Fucking Pigs" would include all of Congress - including a large number of the useless Democrats - who all have the "Cadillac Care" health program - and WE pay for it.
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Yup
all of us cannot have it? Demand an answer from "your" government.
...if they come out, officially, for Single Payer.
My wife got an e-mail while we were watching TV this evening (that's what we do... we sit with our computers on our laps and become one with the Internet while we watch news, or NCIS reruns, or Keith Olbermann, or the HGTV channel.
So she asked me if I wanted us to donate $15,00 a month to Joe Biden to go for getting Health Care reform.
"Well, who sent the e-Mail," I asked, knowing that Biden doesn't vote on it in the Senate unless there's a tie, and neither Biden nor Obama have come out supporting the single-payer plan like they have in Canada or France. Looks like it came from the Party itself... so if I am going to agree to dropping what seems like a small sum to the party I support for legislation I know we need, I'd like to know if they are aiming at what I feel my family needs.
Max Baucus, the Democrat who runs the committee which is crafting the legislation refuses to put single payer on the table. Even though 2/3 of all American bankruptcies are based on health expenses, and although protesters in his own state of Montana have campaigned to get single payer as law, Baucus has expelled supporters of the concept from committee meetings and has refused to add the views of Senator Bernie Sanders of VT, the prime proponent of a single payer plan, to the conversation.
So I said to my wife: I'm not sure what Biden will do with the money, but until the Democrats, and that means Baucus, Obama, Biden, and the rest of the leadership makes single payer a supported action and shuts the absurdly greedy Insurance Industry into the closet, I'll save my money for diabetes test strips.
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Want to know more? Go to Single Payer Central.
Under the LobsterScope - Note New URL.
In some senses, this charade is even more insulting (as if that was possible), than just leave the system as it stands right now.
It seems that the Obama administration is coming up with the narrative that the best way to solve a crisis is to have the parties that caused the crisis to handle it. Which is starting to really really really trouble me, and I hope he spends more time acting like a leader... and less wasted effort in useless speeches.
It looks like the goal of conservatives of going back to the 'good old days' is coming true. Soon we will be back to the days when only the rich will go to the doctor. The average man will only go to the doctor when they are ready to die, it is the only time they can afford it.
This is exactly what happened to us.
Virtually all the Dems, and ALL the re=Thugs -- are quietly planning to pander to the Health Insurance companies demands and degrade any single payer option in drafting stages of the bill. The devil will be in the details.
The result of that degradation will necessitate nearly ALL Americans to ALSO need private insurance if they want decent Health coverage.
Our representatives will do this by disallowing certain types of coverage in the single-payer option when they write up the legislation.
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... alas I am so jaded that I can't but share those very same expectations. In fact, I think the separation between DC and the interests of the taxpayers/citizens is such... that I don't think they will even bother including a self defeating single payer option. They are so emboldened that they don't even feel they have the need to pay lip service to their constituents.
Esp. after seeing how the Dem chairman had no issue having doctors and nurses arrested...
Hartmann said this is already happening.
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the required purchase of insurance from the same companies by every person, and if your employer wants to cover part of the costs (which he can write off against his profits on his tax liability), it becomes taxable to you as the recipient. This will be the law. Demand single payer.
and the "single payer option. We do not want any public option. It is the one that will mean nothing. We want single payer. To hell with all the insurance companies. They have made enough money from sick and dying people. Let them go spend it, and leave the rest of us in peace.
We're all living under an axe - it's just a matter or when it falls.
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of the shareholders. Less people seeking health care, less revenue for the corporate health care providers, drug companies and the insurance companies so they all have to keep raising the prices so their shareholders will get their dividends. A vicious circle that keeps eating away at itself.
It's 100% in my house...
I have insurance and they paid a whopping 48 dollars out of my 500 dollar bill for getting a needle stuck in my neck. Luckily (I think) I didn't do the CT Scan the original doctor wanted or else I would be out at least a grand... I don't know why I pay for insurance if I pay more every 2 weeks than they can even give me for my one problem this year... pathetic
I'm retired military. I get excellent health care through my Naval Hospital and the VA. Sens. Baucus/Nelson and their fellow govenment workers get the same excellent care. And it's FREE. Well, not really. It's paid for by my fellow citizen taxpayers. We are the beneficiaries of a Single Payer system. Teabaggers call it "socialized medicine." Let 'em. Can someone explain to me why I and Baucus/Nelson and company are more deserving of our "free" healthcare than the factory worker, the student, the nurse, the grocery clerk, the accident victim, the housewife, the child... you get the drift? Because I don't understand why I and Baucus/Nelson are so special. I'll be happy to pay my fair share of taxes so that ALL Americans are covered.
You mean, those socialist eggheads that don't believe in white supremacy and in god?? Odds are pretty good that the loud-mouthed, Reighwing adolescents -- we know who they are -- will dismiss these findings with more public-airwaves vitriol, disinformation and ideology.
Part of the problem causing the bankruptcies is that uninsured people are charged a lot more than insurance companies for the same procedure. When I had an outpatient procedure, I got a myriad of bills, stating the amount due, what the insurance paid, and patient's responsibility. One was something like $800, insurance paid $235, patient's responsibility $0.00. But, had I not been insured, where there was a pricing arrangement between hospital and insurance co, $800 would have been presented to the bill collectors for collection.
On average, the face value of the charges was about 3 times what was actually being paid. It is these inflated charges being assessed against the uninsured that are causing a lot of the bankruptcies. 60 Minutes had something on that issue quite a while ago.
I don't think the uninsured should be charged a great deal more than the insured. I think this should be deemed an unlawful arrangement between hospital and insurance company to coerce people into buying insurance.
But, of course, to restate the obvious, we need to copy a system used abroad that drives the cost down to 11% of GDP, covers everyone, and delivers a level of care comparable to that found in Europe, Canada, and/or Japan. The health care problem is a symptom, one of many plaguing our society. The underlying diseases are a corporate media framing the debate with a great effort to avoid cost comparisons with the single payer systems used elsewhere in the world, and a corporate owned and bought off government.
April 9 2008 my wife was in an auto accident.
Torn aorta and diaphram, Broken C1 an T11 vertbra, broken collar bone, broken hip, all the ribs broken on her left side. 5 weeks in neuro trama intensive care.
Air ambulance 13,000.00. emergency room at one hospital another 13,000.00. another hospital 231,000.00. different doctors ranging from 10,000 to 4,000. drug costs 87,000.00, then the rehab hospital for three weeks, then the home care for 3 months, then the outpatient care at 350.00 for every fifteen minutes.
Just today we got a bill from another doctor for over 2,000.00. It never ends. Now we don't even have health insurance any more cant afford the 1,000.00 a month for it.
I truely is a scam.
I don't know if we will get through it.
republicanism is a mental illness!
Maybe time to declare bankruptcy? I'm not sure, but it seems that's the way out of having to pay a half million dollars in medical bills. Good luck though, that's awful.
A couple of things that occurred to me. First, if the accident was someone else fault, then you can sue that insurance company. (Reducing accident related suits is one of the cost benefits of single payer.)
The other thing is, if anyone gets a disability that is expected to last more than a year, he/she should look into Social Security Disability. Once qualified, that starts a one year waiting period for Medicare, so I hear. That's one thing I need to do more myself, develop an action plan for disability, before the disability occurs.
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I had the car radio tuned to NPR earlier today and Diane Rheem's 'expert' panel, including Fox Propoganda contibutor Juan O'Williams, were surprised that the dems were even bringing up the health care topic. They seemed genuinely unconcerned that the nation's health care 'system' had anything at all to do with the current state of the economy. NPR plays to their corporate base again while reality passes them by...
THE MEASURE OF A CIVILIZED SOCIETY
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The measure of a civilized society
or so I have been told,
Is of how they take care
of their innocents,
the sick, indigent and old.
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Do they take care of all of them?
or just a chosen few?
Or do we dare
save only those spared
from a job efficiency crew?
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Do you get on your knees,
thank the lord above
that it didn't happen to you?
Do you ponder if fate
had dealt a different hand
made your job expendable in that plan?
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If it comes to no money
should we be turned away?
Or left to be sick and die?
If we have no assets to recover,
should we really even try?
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Should we shudder and look the other way?
Is that the way it should be?
Or would the civilized thing be
to help those in need
who need our sympathy?
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What is morally right,
and what is morally wrong?
That is the question we must ponder.
Do the big Insurance Companies know?
Should we all look to them for guidance?
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How about our elected officials,
with their free cradle to grave health plan?
Do they know what it is to do without,
like those they represent?
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WordPlaya, June 2009
*******************************
It's no measure of health to be
well adjusted in a profoundly
sick society such as this one.
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(can't remember who said this
quote above, but I wish I had!)
Why not consider the health of our citizens to be a primary part of our national defense strategy? Health care costs would be part of the defense budget.
It would be nice to repeal that disgraceful bankruptcy bill, but first we need universal health care. And soon, because the country can't take much more of this.
Is the truth.
Quite possibly the underlying factor that is being missed is the trap that awaits you.
The health insurers over the last five years or so have very quietly inserted a subrogation clause into most policies.
They have always subrogated and in the past it was against the responsible party, NOW they subrogate against YOU the policy holder.
If you are injured and receive damages from said injuries, your health insurer wants the money back from YOU. So monies that would pay your out of pocket, your bills, even money you may receive for lost wages can be taken from you.
THAT is what is driving many of these bankruptcies. There is so much that has to be fixed in this country.
before someone of the punditocracy took a nasty shot at this study. See Megan McArdle trying to demolish the study by focusing on a different problem while using different metrics.
The funny thing is that several posters demolish her arguments; Klatz @ 10:35 PM and especially "sanitychecker07" @ 10:52 PM...the ensuing exchange reveals how pathetic McArdle can be. In her replies, she tries very hard NOT to address the arguments. You see, McArdle biggest problem is that Warren is one of the authors of the study.
Since she's the "TARP cop" it is apparently imperative (as per McArdle) to make sure there is no "agenda" behind what Prof. Warren write. Mind you, I doubt very much that McArdle can fathom the concept that some people's agenda is nothing more than seeking the facts.
I keep hearing these stories about all the Americans who have been devastated by their health insurance not covering them, or them not having health insurance. And I believe them, based on my own experience.
However, EVERY poll I hear on TV says that most Americans are happy with their health insurance. Huh? Who are they polling? I suspect that these polls are skewed. Yes, all of them. The reason I say this is that when younger people are polled (say, under 30 or 35), it is probably true. At that age, I never went to the doctor and insurance companies aren't stupid. Those who never USE insurance have great feelings about their insurance.
I would love to see polls broken down by age. Say, those under 30, 30-40, 40-50, etc. It is time polls showed 2009, not 1970.
How have so few kept so many so stupid for so long????
A link to the source please?
Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007:
Results of a National Study
David U. Himmelstein, MD,a Deborah Thorne, PhD,b Elizabeth Warren, JD,c Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPHa
aDepartment of Medicine, Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass; bDepartment of Sociology, Ohio University,
Athens; and cHarvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass.
http://pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study/Bankruptcy-2009.pdf pdf file 6 pages
Korporations are required to make a profit .......by law!
This causes a serious conflict of interest in managing health care.
People who are not doctors and in most cases have no medical training whatsoever make decisions about your health care and coverages.
Those decisions are supposedly made about your health issues yet they are primarily focused on whether or not it is profitable for the korporation.
The patients health ends up being a secondary priority and it has cost many people their lives.
Don't believe the lies being told to you by our own government officials that "America has the best health care in the world". It's all Bullsh**. Most of the people telling you this are owned by the pharmaceutical and insurance industry lobbyists
The truth is that According to the World health organization (WHO), America ranks 37th in the world for health care. Just behind Costa Rica and just ahead of Cuba. We are behind countries we consider third world!
See the rankings here:
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
So explain to me how we arrive at the conclusion that we have the best health care in the world. Even if we did have the best health care in the world, What good is it when nobody can afford access to it?
For profit health care should be illegal as it is in many other civilized nations around the world! In those countries insurance company's are only allowed to sell supplemental insurance.
All your medical needs are covered 100%
Demand single payer health care now! and take the for profit motive out of health care!
Healers are stealers.
Does anyone remember that when Obama was campaigning last year, he talked about his mother's death from ovarian cancer and her health insurance issues?
How did we get from then to now?
Also, if health insurers' charges add 30% to costs, why aren't advocates of single-payer asking Americans, "Wouldn't you rather that your health care be 30% better than give that money away to an insurance company"?
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