~~ Today in the USA , “half of bankruptcy [is] due to medical bills.” [see below article] . This country needs to insure equal access to equal health care for all it’s citizens & residents. It is a basic human right to be humanely cared for by your fellow human beings and their governments.
To have to look at your paycheck, and then to realize that you must choose between necessary medical needs & paying for food and rent, is a wrenching & terrifying experience. And there is no reason for it to be this way for millions of Americans.
The Insurance companies suck all the wealth out of the American health care system, but actually provide no real health services -- other than handling the $$$ !! Getting the Insurance companies -- and their need for gross profits --- out of health care system is a must-do for America’s health. ~~TP
To have to look at your paycheck, and then to realize that you must choose between necessary medical needs & paying for food and rent, is a wrenching & terrifying experience. And there is no reason for it to be this way for millions of Americans.
The Insurance companies suck all the wealth out of the American health care system, but actually provide no real health services -- other than handling the $$$ !! Getting the Insurance companies -- and their need for gross profits --- out of health care system is a must-do for America’s health. ~~TP
02 Feb 2005
Source: Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
Half of bankruptcy due to medical bills-US study
WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Half of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by soaring medical bills and most people sent into debt by illness are middle-class workers with health insurance, researchers said on Wednesday.
The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, estimated that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans every year, if both debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children, are counted.
"Our study is frightening. Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who led the study.
"Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection."
She said many employers and politicians were pressing for what she called "stripped-down plans so riddled with co-payments, deductibles and exclusions that serious illness leads straight to bankruptcy."
http://www.alertnet.org/printable.htmURL=/thenews/newsdesk/N01733473.htm
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