Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
Can I File Bankruptcy Just on Medical Bills? : Bankruptcy Law Network
High medical bills don'thave to lead to bankruptcy - The Boston Globe
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Whatever system is in place, people need to start eating healthy to begin with.
Garbage in, garbage out. Garbage is almost any fast food joint and anything that comes in a box with more than 5 ingredients.
Salad for breakfast anyone?
Didn't think so.
All Bran and fruit for breakfast!
I agree eating well is a must, but that is not what broke our health care system--it's profit and greed.
Yes, you have a much better chance of remaining healthy if you eat right, don't smoke, etc but some things are beyond ones control--traumatic accidents, cancers, infectious diseases such as Lyme disease.
I ate healthy all natural foods. I am slender and worked out frequently but it didn't prevent me from getting Lyme disease. Moreover, having insurance did not keep me well. The doctor on the insurance list was following the insurance instructions to run as few diagnostic tests as possible, and as a direct result, did not run the blood test that would have detected it. He diagnosed me with stress. Fast forward four years later, I'm getting much sicker, my joints swell. I see another doctor who runs lots of tests(against the insurance company's desire to keep it simple) and I test positive for Lyme and other infections.
The doctor who diagnosed me was taken to the carpet from BC/BS for running so many tests on patients, she would not back off as diagnosing/treating patients is what is important. The insurance company penalized her--she is no longer with BC/BS or any insurance companies as they dictate HOW doctors practice medicine.
For insurance companies to profit, care is cut, mine was now I have very difficult to treat late stage Lyme.
Sorry but it is much easier to test more in order to avoid lawyers latter.. That is one of the reason our medical cost is so high: too MANY unneeded expensive tests...
Is anyone surprised?
There is no healthcare in this country. There is a medical industry, and an insurance industry. The medical industry is interested in solving medical problems, no matter the cost, and the insurance industry is intersted in making money, no matter the means.
As long as healthcare stays a for-profit industry, the economy will only get worse.
It may sound unpalatable to many, but the only answer is to step in and take those companies away from the private sector. Give them a choice - they can fall in line, convert to non-profit organizations run in direct correlation with the government, meaning they provide coverage to EVERYONE that asks for it regardless of ability to pay or pre-existing conditions (easily done if all the uninsureds were put into one group, the premiums would be practically nothing in a group that large). Choice two - liquidate.
There needs to be no middle ground, as the companies and the people who run them have done nothing but take advantage of sick people, and it's so disgusting, that I think I be happy just seeing them lose everything they have as punishment for being so abusive of the capitalist system and the American people. But I'll settle for cut backs to modest salaries and 100% lack of any type of for-profit activity. Healthcare is not a commodity, it's a necessity, and trying to make a profit off of it is as ludicrous as trying to charge for air.
Well said Laura.
YEP!
Laura,
HR-676 Medicare for ALL is a better solution. Why try to reinvent the wheel?
By the way, I had a non profit HMO--terrible. Medicare for all is the way to go--with no Medicare part D that is.
www.pnhp.o
Why would you FORCE peopel into one solution?
Everyone knows what the problem is. Everyone knows what the solution is. Everyone knows it will kill us as a nation if we don't do it.
And we don't have the political will in DC to do it.
We need Government Sponsored National Catastrophic Health Care Insurance required for everybody. We need to stop Bankruptcy caused by catastrophic medically events.
If we had Medicare for ALL there would be no need for catastrophic health care.
http://www
No, we need health care for all. We need to follow the lead of every other industrialized nation and look at health care as a right and not a privilege.
What does it say about us as a nation that we have no problem with thousands of our citizens dying daily for lack of health care?
It says that people who do not work should not be able to have an elective surgeries.
That is actually a good idea...
You know what would be a better idea-- read some informative books and educate yourself. Good-bye.
One possible answer to the continued erosion of the modest to minimum amount of wealth being held on to by the middle class is to go forward with a national health care plan, and give people a choice between a government plan or the currently exploitative private insurance health care plans.
The disappearance of the middle class will create a banana republic in this country. We will have a society resembling Russia with the wealthy oligarchs and the poor struggling classes below.
http://eye
Yep. The writing is on the wall. We MIGHT have one more chance to change it but right now it looks like no one is interested. Oh well. America: A nice idea while it lasted.
If the mortage and credit card bill are setting precedent for the healthcare bill there isn't going to be any major changes only technicalities.
You mean the righties who claim it's because of wave runners and big screen televisions are full of it?
Yes.
Of course, under the new bankruptcy laws, credit card debt and student loans are exempt from bankruptcy.
Wrong. Consumer debt still has to be paid, and primary residences aren't as protected as those 2nd and 3rd homes of the rich. Did you forget that the financial industry essentially wrote the bill?
They just lost my post. What I was saying is that it took CIGNA (yes, I saw how much the CEO makes) TEN MONTHS to process my Medicare yearly checkup from last year (6/2/08), processed on 3/7/09. Aside from having some squamous cancer cells removed, that yearly checkup is the only claim I usually make at age 68.
Congress should investigate private insurance companies administering Medicare and find out if they are either overcharging, denying, or doing anything else that violates Medicare law. The system really needs the overhaul it didn't get under Bush. CIGNA is always trying to have me change to mail Rxs (their company) but I refuse. Would rather continue with my hometown pharmacist who's right there to advise about medications and will immediately answer any questions without my having to hold the line forever. Except for Lipitor (which Pfizer tweaked to continue their patent which was supposed to go generic this year or next) the 2 others are generic and not expensive at all.
ANNUAL COMPENSATION (2006 and 2007):
� Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
� H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
� David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
� Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
� Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
� Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
� Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
� Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
� William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
� Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
� James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
� Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
� Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
� Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
� Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
� Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
� Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
You forgot Senator Max Baucus. By the time this is over, the other will look like pikers.
How is CIGNA trying to make you switch? Did they make your coverage contingent on switching or they just include a pamphlet for your education?
As for timing of processing I have found that 50% of the delays with my insurance were due to the doctors billing being incorrect and 50% were due to the insurance company...
The paper advising me of when the claim was paid was from CIGNA. The claim was sent by my doctor promptly after my exam. CIGNA didn't make me switch--I refused. They kill a lot of trees, though, as they keep trying it.
I disagree..
-the ins company claims they left out one page of an op report....
-the ins co changed the code in mid stream and demands it be updated...
-bill needs to be "reviewed by panel.....
it's not the dr office making mistakes..
It's pure greed on behalf ot the ins corporatio
My medicare plan via an HMO has doctors whose phones are answered by disembodied voices that say "if this is a true emergency, dial 911 or go to an emergency room." It used to be that it was a DOCTOR who determined what was and what wasn't an emergency, not a patient.
Apparently, the ER is THE place one must go for even routing medical care if one can't wait a month or two for an appointment. Of course, there is a copay of 50 bucks for the ER, so the system is making money on it.
I always laugh when people talk about the poor for whom the ER is the only medical care they ever get. What about the people of Pittsburgh?
"Waiting" is the bogus complaint people have about Canada or the UK. I got sick in the UK and had an appointment for a doctor within an hour and the charge was less than the copay here.
I called my doctor last week for advice about swine flu (I have a bronchia condition) and the anti-virus drug. Her nurse said that there is no such thing, and that she would consult with the doctor anyhow....
sorry....m
"Do no harm." Wow, what hipocrisy.
This is an outrage that 60 percent of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills due to the rigging of the system against patients. Essentially, it is set up so that if you are unlucky enough to be sick, the medical profession and related industries can legally steal absolutely everything you have ever earned and saved in your entire life.
And then the Congress made it difficult if not impossible for people who are bankrupt to keep their homes. So people are not only bankrupt due to the corrupted medical industry, they are going to be homeless, too?
Fact is that the average person can't afford an eight dollar hospital charge for a toothbrush if they are unlucky enough to end up in the hospital, so the price is rigged. And they certainly cant afford 300,000 for some operation, so that price is rigged, too. If the free market were at work, these prices would come down to what the market would bear and what people could pay.
So this leads me to think we should get rid of the insurance companies all together. The middle men must go and the doctors must stand up and take responsibility for the ridiculous prices they are participating in charging and bankrupting their patients.
As my father once said, "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure."
Looking at the article, we find that Harvard and Ohio State do the survey. Even though only 29% of the respondents indicated medical bills as the primary cause of their bankruptcy, we get an extrapolated figure of 62%.
I would think that 29% would a large enough figure to cause alarm, but no...lets make it 60% to create buzz.
Then, we find that Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein is an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States providing commentary.
Having a honest debate is one thing, but this is outright lying to make a point. Lets see the study and its modality for ourselves.
Feel free to step back.
"Involved in" is not causal.
You don't understand bankruptcy, apparently.
There are primary causes, and then there are underlying causes. An example - the high payments on your mortgage might be the primary cause of your bankruptcy, but the skyrocketing cost of energy, fuel, and medical care are underlying causes, because you were able to make the high mortgage payments before these other expenses went through the roof, and became too large a portion of your income to be sustained.
It is clearly stated what the 62% figure represents in the article: "While only 29 percent directly blamed medical bills for their bankruptcy, 62 percent had medical bills that totaled more than 10 percent of family income, said an illness was responsible, had lost income due to illness or some other medical factor."
I can't figure out how on earth you can consider that a lie without disproving it. It's actually rather amazing that you would claim such a thing, seeing as they were quite honest about the situation. You may take issue with the headline, but the headline and the study are not one in the same, in case you didn't already know.
Having a disclosure means nothing when the study authors know that headline number will 62%. That is what credit cards companies got in trouble for...
Oh, so only a study by those against single payer would be valid? You know, like one Harry and Louise might put together?
Look, they published the facts. They didn't hide the 29%. I saw that, too. The primary cause is medical bills in nearly one-third of the cases, and a contributing factor in nearly another third. Any responsible reader would see that. Quibble about the headline if you will, the bottom line is that medical costs are catastrophic on the middle class, even those with health insurance, and if a single payer advocate doesn't publish the facts, who will? What, health insurance companies are as pure as the driven snow and people from Harvard are evil Marxists?
And you can't expect those who profit from this sick situation to reform themselves or conduct an objective study. Have you forgotten the cigarette industry?
At least I'll have multiple insurance plans to choose from and I'll be able to choose my doctor before going bankrupt. Whew!
You won't be able to choose your doctor. Neither will I. What you can choose is the phone number for the disembodied voice that tells you to go to the ER.
Just give us the payment each month and don't get sick or we'll cancel you!
Unfortunately, so far. things in the Health Care area don't look as if change is coming....
B-but the Bu$h administration and the Dem-controlled congress said we needed that bankruptcy reform a few years ago.
All these statistics were available then, but they made sure it sailed through in a bipartisan fashion.
'scuse me, it was passed in 2005 by the 109th GOP Congress. My bad.
http://en.
Charles Grassley was the one who introduced it.
It's getting hard to remember who screwed us, when, anymore.
One more way conservatives are working hard at destroying the American middle class.
The Bankruptcy Reform Act was sponsored in Congress by Joe Biden.
What delusion are you suffer from that could make you think that the point of any of this is how the bankruptcies are occurring as opposed to why? Oxygen deprivation from having your head crammed too far up your a.s.s. for too long, or what?
Some factual points to correct, as you have proven you don't know what you're talking about here -
-The problem is that so many people are having to file bankruptcy right now, not the process by which it occurs.
-It didn't go through smoothly, the Bankruptcy Reform Act was heavily debated.
-It was passed and signed into law in 2005, before the Dems took control of Congress, so you can stop trying to pass off the blame anytime now.
-The bill in its current form was presented by Chuck Grassley.
-It was supported by then-President Bush and Tom DeLay.
-Banks and credit card companies were the main supporters of the legislation.
-The reason it took nearly 6 years for the bill to pass was because the Democrats opposed it.
Read and learn:
http://www
Word of warning - people who actually know what they're talking about wrote this, so it's probably over your head by several miles.
To protect the interest-goughing credit card companies.
One of my conservative friends was spitting nails last fall, when he was refused payment for a yearly check up, because the insurance provider classified a check up as a pre-existing condition. Insurance companies have forgotten the risk component of there business. In last few years they have been more interested in writing mortgages and acting as investment banks, now trying to cover those loses on the backs of there insurance customers. Ironically my friends still didn't understand that if businesses that take premiums serve the public and than don't, that the government needs to insert there will.
Exactly.
They have proven themselves to be corrupt and willing to abuse the system, the laws, and the people. As a government run by the people and ruled by the law, the only solution is to stop them, and the only way to stop them is to eliminate any type of for-profit insurance industry altogether.
I frankly don't care if people do or don't like the idea, and I'm sorry for the people that will lose jobs as a result, but they can look at it this way - now that businesses won't have to provide insurance to employers, and people don't have to pay more for insurance a month than they do on a mortgage, the economy will improve and other organizations will be hiring. Not to mention, someone will have to run the new government offices. It may sound like a cold truth, but it's reality, and we have to face it sooner rather than later, unpleasant though it may be, or we'll never be able to dig ourselves out of the hole we're in.
The insurance companies make foolish risky investments on the back of the policy holders' premiums, then when those investments go bust, they raise the premiums again. Here is where regulation would help.
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First Posted: 06- 4-09 01:36 AM | Updated: 06- 4-09 01:50 AM