Medical debt keeps people away from care
A survey reveals the financial reality of a frayed safety-net system that fails to serve many uninsured Americans.
By Joel B. Finkelstein, amednews staff. Feb. 3, 2003.
Washington -- Uninsured and ill, many Americans face barriers to medical care because of past bills, according to a new survey by the Access Project, a Boston-based health care think tank.
"Our findings challenge the myth that Americans without health insurance receive free care," said Mark Rukavina, executive director of the project, a program of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
The survey found that 46% of uninsured patients had debts from previous medical care, and 24% of the patients said it had deterred them from seeking follow-up care. Thirteen percent also reported not being able to afford any or all of their prescribed medication.
The financial stress of medical problems is also reflected in research on bankruptcy trends.
"About half of the families who file for bankruptcy do so in the aftermath of serious medical problems," said Harvard University law professor Elizabeth Warren.
That amounts to 750,000 families a year, and the number is growing every year.
People bankrupted by medical problems run the gamut, she said. Some lose their jobs and then get sick; others get sick and are fired. Some experience a traumatic illness or injury that wipes them out financially, and others have a chronic illness that slowly drains their resources.
The Access Project survey found that uninsured patients were often hounded for payment, turned over to collection agencies and/or forced into bankruptcy by medical debt.
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