Bankruptcy Lawyer: When Medical Bills Are Overwhelming

When the economy is down, it comes as little surprise that many people would be in search of a good bankruptcy lawyer. After all, unemployment rates skyrocket and people are out of work. Housing prices plummet while people find themselves upside down in their mortgages and unable to pay even the monthly costs of keeping their homes. What you might find surprising, however, is that even in recent times of great economic turmoil, it isn’t housing or unemployment that is keeping people from staying afloat. In more cases than not, the main cause of financial insolvency is rising medical bills.

According to a joint study performed by researchers at Ohio University, Cambridge Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, 60% of the bankruptcies in 2007 were due to people falling behind on medical bills. Since then, studies and statistics have shown that these numbers have been steadily rising. Some of them were compounded by loss of income due to being out of work because of the illness that led to the bills in the first place.

This malady struck both people with health insurance and those without. It was discovered that even those who had health insurance were woefully under-insured when it came to paying for the medical treatment they needed. After the insurance money ran out, these people were still left with medical bills averaging in the range of $17,500. Of course, those without any form of insurance were hardest hit, being stuck with an average of just over $26,000 in bills.

As the study points out, health insurance is tied to employment in almost all cases. This is due to the high cost of individual plans. This meant that when a person lost their job for medical issues, they often lost their medical coverage as well, leading almost directly to their hunting down a bankruptcy attorney to help them get out from under all of that crushing debt. Of course, in a time where the word “recession” was on everyone’s lips, many people had already lost their jobs simply due to cutbacks. Many of these employers canceled their insurance plans instantly, with most others canceling the plans within a year.

While these findings certainly seem to call for further healthcare overhauls, they also call for Americans to change their eating habits and improve their level of physical activity. Most illness and disease is personally preventable by adhering to better, healthy living guidelines. It may be that eating more fruits and vegetables and consuming less alcohol and fatty snacks could not only mean living longer, it could mean preventing a trip to the bankruptcy lawyer.