Half of personal bankruptcies caused by medical bills

By Rick Stouffer
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, February 3, 2005

National health insurance is the only solution to the problem in America of having the world's costliest health care, yet still having 40 million people uninsured, a handful of local groups said Wednesday.

The groups also discussed the fact that health care costs are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy filings, citing a just-released study in the online journal Health Affairs.

The discussion included representatives of the United Steelworkers of America, Physicians for a National Health Program, Pennsylvania United for Single-Payer Healthcare, the Steelworkers National Health Care Workers Council and the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees.

"The study shows that about half the personal bankruptcies in this country are attributed to medical bills, and that's surprising," said Bill Wood, an otolaryngologist resident at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital and the local coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.

According to the study by Harvard and Ohio University professors, of the nearly 1.5 million families that filed for personal bankruptcy in 2001, roughly half cited medical causes for the filings. The four co-authors believe as many as 2.2 million Americans experienced medical bankruptcy.

However, not everyone believes single-payer health care -- one large government operated program -- is the way to fix the system. Highmark, the region's largest health insurer, points to current single-payer program problems.

"There are pros and cons that go with the single-payer health care system," said Highmark spokesman Denise Grabner. "The closest thing we have now are Medicare and Medicaid, and we have had definite funding issues with them over the last few years. Multiple insurers encourages competition and innovation."

Tom Tomczyk, a health care consultant in the Pittsburgh office of Mercer Human Resource Consulting, said installing universal health care coverage now would be a big mistake. "You would be putting in a system on top of a medical system that is broken," Tomczyk said. "There are a lot of underlying problems with the medical system, like excess capacity and the need to use only the most cost-efficient providers that should be addressed before putting in a universal system. You would just be wasting taxpayer dollars."

Even having health care coverage is not enough to forestall bankruptcy, according to the study. More than 75 percent of those filing for bankruptcy were insured at the onset of the bankruptcy-causing illness.

Mike Stout, owner of Steel Valley Printers in Homestead and coordinator for the group Pennsylvania United for Single-Payer Healthcare, said small business can't continue to pay health insurance premiums. "In the last two years, premiums for my people have gone up 100 percent, and I'm told they will go up another 15 percent to 20 percent this year," Stout said. "We can't keep doing this; either we go out of business, or we drop coverage for our employees -- and I won't do that."

Stout added that later this month, his group's efforts to get universal care on a state level will get a big boost when a state legislator he would not identify will make public legislation for universal, single-payer health care for all Pennsylvanians.

Rick Stouffer can be reached at rstouffer@tribweb.com