Millions are crippled by medical debt - welcome to healthcare in America

[MontanaMama]

14. I've refinanced my house 3 times in 25 years

to pay for medical debt. The first time was for the birth of my son when I was 41 years old and the other two times were when a benign but dangerous tumor was discovered between my kiddo’s ear and his brain. He required two surgeries and the rebuild of his ear drum and replacement of his hearing bones - twice. It’s not like we don’t have insurance...we are self insured because we’re self employed. Because of that, our premiums and deductible are huge. There’s no way around it. Only two companies offer individual insurance in MT and one of them is priced so high that they’re absolutely unaffordable. I buy a Silver plan for our family of 3 from the company offering more “affordable” plans and we still paid $18,000 in 2019 for premium and $4000 per person deductible. Needless to say, my house would be paid off if not for medical debt. I am, grateful, however, that I have a house to be able to leverage to pay those bills. Many do not.