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Originally Posted by sob
Since you stated this, do you have a breakdown of percentages? I'm interested in what percentage is NOT related to job loss or major sickness (I don't consider a gambling or drug addiction an acceptable "major sickness").
Yes, I saw flstf's post about the 50%.  |
Here ya go, sob, as far as the recent medical bankruptcy study data. This was
a representative study of actual 2001 bankruptcy filers in 5 different U.S. Bankruptcy Court districts.
(I think that you can assume that, if approx. 50 percent of filings were illness related, that there had to be some filings in the other 50 percent related to
involuntary job loss.)
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<a href="http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html">http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html</a><br />
Medical Bills Leading Cause of Bankruptcy, Harvard Study Finds<br />
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February 3, 2005<br />
Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs. <br />
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The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.<br />
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Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.<br />
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Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work -- losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.<br />
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<a href="http://www.healthaffairs.org/press/janfeb0505.htm">http://www.healthaffairs.org/press/janfeb0505.htm</a><br />
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MarketWatch: Illness And Injury As Contributors To Bankruptcy<br />
David U. Himmelstein 1*, Elizabeth Warren 2, Deborah Thorne 3, Steffie Woolhandler 4<br />
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1 David Himmelstein is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care physician at Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts.<br />
2 Elizabeth Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in Boston. She was chief adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission.<br />
3 Deborah Thorne is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ohio University in Athens.<br />
4 Steffie Woolhandler is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, where she codirects the General Medicine Faculty Development Fellowship Program. She practices primary care internal medicine at Cambridge Hospital.<br />
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Abstract<br />
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In 2001, 1.458 million American families filed for bankruptcy. To investigate medical contributors to bankruptcy, we surveyed 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts and subsequently completed in-depth interviews with 931 of them. About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9-2.2 million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy. Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs average $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness. Medical debtors were 42 percent more likely than other debtors to experience lapses in coverage. Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial catastrophe when sick<br />
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<b>An unusually "fair and balanced" excerpt from Fox news: <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150017,00.html">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150017,00.html</a> <br />
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"I applaud the strong bipartisan vote in the Senate to curb abuses of the bankruptcy system," Bush said in a statement. "Reforming the system with this common sense approach, more Americans — especially lower-income Americans — will have greater access to credit."<br />
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Lenders had been pushing the legislation for eight years. They argued too many people with ability to repay at least a portion of the money they owe were walking away from all their debts under current law.<br />
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"Those who can pay their bills should pay their bills. That's the American way," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (search), R-Utah.<br />
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Democrats had succeeded in blocking the legislation year after year. They argued the changes advocated by Republicans would keep people who are overwhelmed by medical costs or loss of a job hopelessly in debt the rest of their lives.<br />
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"It will have a real impact on real people all over this country," said Sen. Russ Feingold (search), D-Wis.<br />
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Over the past two weeks, Republicans knocked down Democratic attempts to ease the impact of the legislation on people facing huge debts they cannot pay, including single parents, the unemployed and the ill.<br />
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Wall Street investment bankers won a provision that will enable the same firm to work for a company both before and after it files for bankruptcy. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson opposed the measure; he said it would further undermine investor confidence already shaken by the Enron, WorldCom and other corporate scandals.
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<b>Without</b> Bankruptcy "reform", the credit card industry reaps:
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<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/etc/synopsis.html">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/etc/synopsis.html</a>
...........The industry's most profitable customers, the ones being sought by creative marketing tactics, are the "revolvers:" the estimated 115 million Americans who carry monthly credit card debt.
Ed Yingling, incoming president of the American Bankers Association, tells FRONTLINE that revolvers are "the sweet spot" of the banking industry. This "sweet spot" continues to grow as the average credit card debt among American households has more than doubled over the past decade. Today, the average family owes roughly $8,000 on their credit cards. This debt has helped generate record profits for the credit card industry -- last year, more than $30 billion before taxes..............
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If, as Bush claimed, the "reform" was about "more Americans — especially lower-income Americans — will have greater access to credit.", attempts to
insert amendments in the senate bill to cap maximum interest rates would
not have been blocked.
Bush describes this bill as a "bi-partisan" effort. The no votes came from 31 of 45 senate democrats, including John Kerry.