I had a discussion with a doctor’s nurse today about whether or not I had followed up with a specialist for one of my physical conditions I’ve been dealing with for 20 years.  They obviously have no concept of not being able to afford a specialist.  With a $3500 deductible along with being unemployed a specialist isn’t a necessity but a luxury.

I don’t claim to know the perfect solution to fix our broken health care system but I do know a change must come before more and more Americans find themselves with chronic illnesses they can’t afford to treat.

By Kyung M. Song

Medical bankruptcies

Illnesses — and the attendant loss of job and insurance — are a major reason behind personal bankruptcies in the United States.

In a random national survey published online in June of 2,314 bankruptcy filings, researchers from Harvard University and Ohio University found that 62 percent of the debtors had experienced an illness, high medical bills or loss of income.

Key findings about the medical bankruptcies:

• Seventy-eight percent of those debtors had health insurance at the onset of their illnesses.

• Debtors with no insurance had medical bills averaging $26,971, compared with $17,749 for those with private coverage.

• Of those who owned homes, 5.7 percent borrowed against the house to pay medical bills.

• People with neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and those with diabetes had the highest bills, averaging $34,167 and $22,568, respectively.

(Source: “Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study,” August 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine)

When Mark Moody and Glenda Krull could no longer afford both health insurance and mortgage payments, the Edmonds couple knew which had to go.

They sold their house.

Moody, 60, had a liver transplant four years ago and may need another. He alone pays $1,345 a month for the most generous policy he can buy from Premera Blue Cross.

And he’s desperate to hang on to it — even though the costly premiums drove his wife to downgrade her own coverage, decimated their retirement savings and, just this month, forced them out of their well-appointed home into a newly purchased house half its size.

For Americans with serious illnesses, even good insurance is no guarantee they won’t go broke and they will get all the medical care they need.

In 2007, nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies filed across the country were linked to illnesses, loss of income or high medical bills, according to a survey published in June by researchers at Harvard University and Ohio University. Of those cases, 78 percent of the debtors had health insurance when they first got sick.

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