Medical Insurance Plans Are Vital For Everyone In The US

By Janet Gemstist

Most insurance buys are thought to be grudge purchases, however you may look at it medical insurance plans are an absolute essential. The recession has hit the U.S. really hard and unemployment is not getting better. Retirement accounts are hardly worth the paper they are published on and houses are being foreclosed upon.

Unemployment is high up, bankruptcies are at and all time high, along with foreclosures. Home owners have no value in their property to fall back on because property values are at and all time low, and if you look at last years bankruptcy figures, these have elevated by 34. 5% for the same period.

What is even more stunning is the fact that the American Journal of Medicine has published outcomes from a study by Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Hospital, which tells almost categorically that high medical costs have been the reason why many people have had to file for bankruptcy. We have also heard it mentioned that several individuals losing their houses to foreclosure have been laid low by illness and tremendous medical charges.

Enter another 2 schools into the fray, Ohio and Harvard Law School! These universities have set up research which categorically states 60% of bankruptcy recordings in 2007 were induced by people being unable to afford to pay bills for medical treatment. It is already tough enough that the cost of medical treatment is so high, but for individuals to have been brought so low by it is an even bigger curse.

The scenario is causing a social-economic problem that has escalated out of all balance. Matters are out of reach and the powers that be don't seem to be either willing or able to help. The results of the above-mentioned survey came from a test group of 2,214 bankruptcies. The cause for bankruptcy was determined by examining court dockets and interviewing the individuals interested, and this is what resulted in the researchers findings: More than half the bankruptcy filings were due to medical reasons.

Even middle class people in the US with medical insurance have had to file for bankruptcy because of medical bills. Suffering from a tough or life threatening illness has found people to be under insured, and left with a bunch of medical treatment bills that they cannot afford to pay. These bills are in the thousands of dollars.

Medically bankrupt individuals loosely have an average amount of $18 000 remaining on their treatment fees, and this is the health insured part of bankruptcies. The un-insured portion of people filing away for medical bankruptcy owe an average of $26,000 in out of pocket expenses.

Health coverage is linked to employment and vice versa, so when a individual becomes ill they may lose both their insurance and their line of work. This is a serious problem and it is something we should all be worried about. - 29970

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