Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies; 78% had (crappy) insurance

[SaintLouisBlues]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/bankruptcy.medical.bills/index.html?_s=PM:HEALTH


Hopefully the ACA will make the number of medical bankruptcies go way down.

edit to add link to 2009 CNN story

[leftstreet]

1. Wow. And 80% are covered through employer, Medicare,

Medicaid, Vets etc

[SaintLouisBlues]

3. Like the crappy insurance offered from the largest US employer Wal-Mart

[RobertEarl]

2. Problem is

The cost of health care is way too high for the benefits returned.

We can only fix that by a complete takeover of the whole system.

We start first by making preventative care the first item. And clean up the environment.

Then have 'death with dignity' programs so that drastic and costly procedures that only add days to the end of life suffering are eliminated.

[kestrel91316]

5. "Death with dignity" already exists. When my mom was failing, my sister already had medical power of

attorney (with my blessing). We decided that we were no longer going to do anything for her other than keep her out of pain and unafraid (she had chronic schizophrenia plus stroke-related dementia).

So we kept up the blood pressure meds and the antipsychotics. When she got a breast lump we didn't pursue it. When she broke her hip we had the surgery for her but no replacement, and she couldn't relearn how to walk due to her dementia. She stayed in assisted living and we put her on hospice care. She still lived a couple more years. Eventually she couldn't eat anymore, trouble swallowing. We just kept her drugged up on pain meds until the end. No IV fluids, no tube feeding, no urinary catheter, NONE of that crap.

The assisted living facility was costly but she had the money for it. There's no way were were going to allow any heroic crap to prolong her sad life. With hospice you get to let nature take its course.

I just had a conversation the other day with my BIL, he's a nuclear pharmacist. He says we really need to get costs under control in this country. 90% of our medical costs in the US are for people in the last year of their lives, IIRC. He says he sees way too many cases of everything humanly possible done to keep an advanced Alzheimer's patient breathing a few more weeks. Makes me sick - such a waste of limited resources. And NONE of these people, if they had their wits about them, would want to be kept alive once they got this way.

Everyone in our family knows not to try heroics on any of us who wind up permanently mentally incapacitated. And we also know when enough is enough in fighting cancer. I wish everybody else did.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Great post.

I am sending this in an email to my family. I know I would want to go out when nature says its time. What a great way to explain why I feel that way. Thanks for writing it up.

[kelliekat44]

4. Precisely my point in an earlier post.

Those who are having their employee health insurance discontinued by their employer need to know that it likely that their employer insurance was crappy and doesn't meet the minimum standards of the ACA. They were only one serious illness away from bankruptcy. And they need to know that there were contributing to their own health insurance before it was cancelled by their employer and they should expect to see a payroll increase after their employer health insurance is cancelled until their new ACA premiums kick in.