[Well, have it your way then. People do need longevity but can’t have it because of no stinking access. The following ran in the Washington Post a week ago.]
Study Cites Medical Bills For Many Bankruptcies
By Albert B. Crenshaw Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday , April 25, 2000 ; E01
Nearly half of the more than 1 million Americans who filed for bankruptcy protection last year did so at least in part because they could not cope with medical bills or other financial consequences of illness or injury, according to a forthcoming study of U.S. bankruptcy filings.
The impact of medical costs is highest on women and families headed by women and among older people, the study found. And it found that lack of medical insurance was a key factor in only a minority of the filings.
"I thought we would be looking at a wholly uninsured group of Americans, and we're not," said Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. "These data suggest that under-insurance is a far bigger problem for middle-class families, under-insurance in the sense that it's not enough to cover catastrophic medical costs, or it doesn't cover all the financial implications" of illness, such as lost income.
More broadly, Warren said, the findings illustrate how fragile middle-class status is for many American families. These families are "just one serious illness away from financial collapse," she said. "What a scary way to think about America."
Warren has studied bankruptcy for many years and served as adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, which Congress set up in the mid-1990s to study possible bankruptcy reforms. She opposes some of the provisions of bills pending in Congress that would make it harder for people to use the bankruptcy law to eliminate their debts.
Credit-card issuers argue that current bankruptcy law makes it too easy for debtors to walk away from their obligations, even if they could in fact repay a substantial portion of them. Issuers are pressing Congress to tighten the requirements for bankruptcy by making it harder to file for Chapter 7 protections, which wipe out most debts.
Many instead would be required to enter Chapter 13, which requires them to set up a plan to pay off some or all of their debts.
William Binzel of MasterCard International Inc. said Warren's findings agree with others he has seen: "In the overwhelming majority of cases, the person filing [for bankruptcy] experienced some economic catastrophe within the 12 to 24 months prior. So there's an economic event somewhere in there that interrupts their income."
But it does not alter the need for bankruptcy reform, he said. "It's not about good bankruptcies or bad bankruptcies. . . . The fundamental concept behind [the pending bills] is to require those debtors who have the ability to repay their debts to repay them."
Warren and her colleagues, Teresa Sullivan, dean of graduate studies at the University of Texas, and lawyer Melissa B. Jacoby surveyed bankruptcy filers in eight judicial circuits around the country, accounting for about 18 percent of all filers.
Projecting the results nationwide, the study would mean that 326,441 bankruptcies last year were related to an illness or injury to the filer or a family member, and another 267,575 filers had substantial medical bills though they would list other reasons--or gave no reason--for their bankruptcies.
Warren said the implications of the findings are that if such families are denied the ability to wipe out debts in bankruptcy, some will lose their homes and "many of these people will face collection for the rest of their lives."
It has long been true that some families are ruined financially every year by a devastating illness, such as cancer, Warren said. It is often the combination of illness and heavy consumer debts that prompts people to seek bankruptcy protection, she added.
"The difference between what we saw 40 years ago and what we see today is 40 years ago when families were hit by a modest medical problem they still had flexibility in their budget," Warren said. "Their future income was unencumbered. Today families are carrying so much more consumer debt that even a modest medical bill can put them over the edge financially and they end up in collapse."
Whether this debt is the fault of consumers who are unable to restrain their spending or of lenders, principally credit-card issuers, that have enticed families into assuming more debt than they can afford has been the subject of intense debate in recent years.
The study is to be published next month in Norton's Bankruptcy Adviser, a specialty periodical.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
Carl
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