Well, At Least I Know I’m Not Alone
Some statistics about health insurance, medical bills, and lots and lots of Americans:
Today comes word from the Commonwealth Fund that the effect of the American health care system on the finances of Americans is more dire than you might have thought:
The proportion of working-age Americans who have medical bill problems or who are paying off medical debt climbed from 34 percent to 41 percent between 2005 and 2007, bringing the total to 72 million, according to recent survey findings from The Commonwealth Fund. In addition, 7 million adults age 65 and over also had problems paying medical bills, for a total of 79 million adults with medical bill problems or medical debt.
This is the number Democrats need to talk about when the topic is our broken health care system, as well as the forty-six million who lack health insurance. Americans understand struggling with bills and debt; for people who have jobs with health insurance, going without it sounds like something only poor people do.
Here is more:
- Medical bills are devouring Americans’ savings and making it hard or impossible to pay for other necessities, like food and housing costs.
- Having a job doesn’t necessarily mean you have insurance; many working families don’t.
- Having insurance doesn’t mean you’re covered; the number of underinsured Americans is also growing.
I haven’t done the research, but I’ll bet the number of bankruptcies is also increasing.
Tags: Kathy
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