New Study: US Bankruptcies Tied To Medical Bills By Sarah Lovenheim, June 4, 2009

Source: The Washington Post

Sixty-two percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses, according to a nationwide study released today by the American Journal of Medicine. That's nearly 20 percentage points higher than that pool of respondents reported were connected to medical costs in 2001.

Of those who filed for bankruptcy in 2007, nearly 80 percent had health insurance. Respondents who reported having insurance indicated average expenses of just under $18,000. Respondents who filed and lacked insurance had average medical bills of nearly $27,000.

Since 2007, the number of Americans without insurance has increased and filing for bankruptcy has become more difficult due to more stringent laws, according to the report.

The authors of the study, David Himmelstein, Deborah Thorne, Elizabeth Warren and Steffie Woolhandler, say their findings "reflect the U.S. health care financing system is broken." Middle class families, they conclude, "frequently collapse under the strain of the health care system that treats physical wounds, but inflicts fiscal ones."