More Americans Are Struggling To Pay Medical Bills

Pummeled by a deepening recession that is demolishing jobs and family finances, more Americans are struggling to pay their medical bills.

For years a booming economy camouflaged the burden of medical debt. Patients borrowed against their homes or whipped out credit cards. But falling house prices and tightening credit have eliminated those options for many.

As a result, the problem of medical debt is climbing the income scale, affecting not just the poor or the uninsured. Millions of Americans covered by health insurance are paying more for less — fewer benefits, higher co-pays and additional deductibles — and are at risk for large out-of-pocket bills when serious illness or injury strike.

“People who are underinsured end up facing almost identical problems as the uninsured,” said Karen L. Pollitz, director of the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University. “The difference is, they paid for the privilege.”

Jim Eyler says he needs help. The cement company manager said he spends about 33 percent of his take-home pay on unreimbursed medical bills, many connected with the advanced breast cancer his wife has been battling since 2005. “I keep wondering, where’s the money going to come from?” he asked.

Unlike other forms of consumer debt, such as a mortgage or automobile payments, medical debt is typically involuntary and unplanned, the result of necessity, not desire. Consumers can’t shop around for the best deal on an angioplasty or the cheapest hospital, nor in many cases can they delay treatment. Often they are forced to make decisions at their most vulnerable, because they or a loved one is sick, injured or dying.

Medical debt can quickly snowball. Consumers with unpaid bills can wind up in court defending themselves against lawsuits filed by doctors and hospitals, which typically charge the uninsured full price for care, without the hefty discounts negotiated by health plans. Debtors’ wages can be garnished, liens can be placed on their homes, and their future job and housing prospects torpedoed by bad credit ratings. Those who charged medical expenses to a credit card can find that missed or late payments result in an interest rate that zooms retroactively to 29 percent.

Embarrassed by unpaid bills and fearful of accruing more, many such patients postpone care until they are sicker and their illnesses are more difficult and expensive to treat.

Sheila Bell-Clifford has been uninsured since August, when her husband lost his job and with it their health insurance while he was being treated for metastatic cancer. She has stopped going to the doctor for treatment of her severe diabetes and skips pills, although complications landed her in the hospital two years ago. “I have to juggle them,” she said of her medications, “because if I run out I’m in worse shape.”

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Source: The Washington Post.