One of the most awful things about healthcare in our country is that when you get ill

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

not only do you have the angst, fear and dread of dealing with the physical consequences of your disease, you also are subjected to the angst fear and dread that the illness will have as it's most dire side effect making you and your family penniless and possibly homeless.

Part of healthcare reform, or coming immediately after healthcare reform, should be a special bankruptcy chapter that deals exclusively with medically caused bankruptcies that pretty much eliminates those debts altogether. I am mentioning this because there are countless individuals and families who have already been ensnared in the financial web of healthcare AS IT EXIST TODAY, regardless of what our hopes may be for the healthcare of the future.

[AndyA]

1. You can't just focus on getting well, you have to worry about paying the bills.

And all so the insurance companies can make enough profit to pay their CEO $24 million a year, plus perks.

That ought to be illegal, profiting from someone else's hardship.

Only in America, the greatest country in the world! (Right... :eyes:)

[tsuki]

2. Fear is what the Republicons need to maintain power. That is

why they oppose HCR.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. If we had universal single payer would medical bankruptcies be a moot point?

I agree that changes need to be made now, but dang I wish we didn't need them at all. x(

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Well yes it would be moot. That was Al Franken's point in that testimony

that was all over the intertubes the other day. Other countries with national healthcare systems do not have medical bankruptcies such as we do.

If you didn't see it, here it to enjoy.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/23/al-franken-kicks-ele.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Thanks for the link. I missed that the other day. :^)

[Hidden Stillness]

5. They are Not Even Dealing with Crises Like This

There was a program on CSPAN 1 or 2 a few days ago, a Senate Subcommittee--(I can't keep them all straight, but it was chaired by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of R.I., who is really great)--where Sem. Whitehouse was proposing a forgiveness of all medical-catastophic debt; it was being fought viciously by that asshole Jeff Sessions of Alabama, with the "those deadbeats won't pay the bills they run up" routine, as a panel of very ill people who were crushed by sudden debt, sat there and listened. I don't know if anything will happen with Whitehouse's great proposal exemption; it will probably be killed.

This also explains why such a clear majority of older people sign documents or otherwise make it clear, that if they are incapacitated, go into coma, etc., they do not want any "heroic measures" as they are called, to be done; no surgeries etc. Most people do not want to hang on, when life is over, and most are horrified at the thought of debt and being a burden. The medical "industry," as a profit-maker, gives you no solutions to any of this, and fights any reform.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. Whitehouse is a treasure. Alabamans need to see Sessions fighting against them

Some Dem in Alabama needs to provide links all over the place - maybe in the public notice part of Craig's list, etc. that says something like

"Alabamans with medical debt - Jeff Sessions fights tooth and nail to prevent help for you. see link."

Put it in every local blog they can find, every Sessions site, every Dem site, I mean everywhere. They can't get away with this stuff anymore.

[undeterred]

7. If we had real health care reform there would be no more

medical bankruptices. Everyone would be covered adequately.

[madrchsod]

8. i know full well about what you are writing ....

there should be separate class medical bankruptcies . filing another on medical bills while needing two more surgeries. this will cost me a new furnace,windows,insulation for my home. the ability to purchase at least a decent used car or god forbid a vacation.
the only thing that keeps us in our home is my ss covers out mortgage and a utility bill.

oh yes... i have healthcare insurance.

[csziggy]

10. Exactly - most of the people with medical bankruptcies HAVE insurance

Which either denies them coverage or simply does not cover enough of their treatment.

I know how you feel, madrchsod - I had surgery in June and I think I may have finally gotten all the bills from that "fully covered" procedure taken care of. Now I am dealing with a root canal and a surgical procedure to prepare that tooth for a cap - supposedly covered by our dental insurance, but I am holding back enough to pay for the whole thing out of pocket.

I am lucky to have had some cash reserves - in the last ten years I have had five major surgeries with three different insurance policies. Each time, my portion of how much I have to pay out of pocket has increased. This last surgery cost me two to three times more out of pocket than any of the previous ones, even though my choices for my benefit package have not changed significantly - just how much the insurance company allows has changed. Now my cash reserves are badly depleted and I am much less able to put money aside to replenish them.

I hope I do not have any more surgeries any time soon and really hope I do not have anything more major than my previous surgeries - if I got cancer or something really expensive to treat, I would probably just opt out of treatment.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is leading this fight

Al Franken absolutely destroyed an Insurance hag Prima Donna the other day in one of the hearings. Elizabeth Edwards testified as well.

I am not sure what is being proposed, only that bankruptcy due to medical bills is the target.

[Captain Hilts]

12. Ron Wyden's 'there' for us as well. nt