PHYSICIANS FOR A NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM PRESS RELEASE

[eridani]

February 2, 2005

Dear PNHP members and far-flung friends,

We are sending you a press release on a landmark study published today in the on-line edition of Health Affairs. It reveals that over half of all US bankruptcies result from unpaid medical bills and illness. Seventy-five percent of those bankrupted by medical bills actually had insurance at the time they got sick.



As if on cue, President Bush will hype "high-deductible health plans" and "medical savings accounts" in his State of the Union speech tonight - proposals designed to shift even more of the cost of health care onto sick patients. Obviously, these plans will only exacerbate the incidence of medical bankruptcy.

The real solution is "Medicare for All": comprehensive, fiscally-conservative, single payer national health insurance. Everybody In, Nobody Out!

Good Morning America (see study author Steffie Woolhandler Feb. 2nd, during the first half-hour), New York Times, Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, Time, US News and World Report and many other media are already committed to reporting the bankruptcy study.

We encourage you to forward the release to newspapers, radio and TV news programs, and interested organizations in your area.

As always, we thank you for your continued support and especially for your volunteer efforts. These local initiatives have made our public education efforts competitive in the debate with our deep-pocket opponents.

Congratulations!

Cordially,

Quentin Young, MD Ida Hellander, MD
Volunteer National Coordinator, PNHP Executive Director, PNHP

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and most inhuman," Martin Luther King, Jr. (Medical Committee for Human Rights Convention, 1966).

Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E. Madison, Suite 602
Chicago, IL 60602
www.pnhp.org
[email protected]
phone [phone]
fax [phone]

_________________________________________________________________

PHYSICIANS FOR A NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM PRESS RELEASE

29 E MADISON, SUITE 602

CHICAGO, IL 60602

[phone]

Illness and Medical Bills Cause Half of All Bankruptcies -

2 Million Americans Financially Ruined Each Year

Most of Those Bankrupted by Illness Are Middle Class and Have Insurance

Study Highlights Need for National Health Insurance

EMBARGOED UNTIL:

February 2, 2005, 12:01 AM EDT

Contacts:

David Himmelstein, M.D., Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., [phone]

Nick Skala, [phone]

Illness and medical bills caused half (50.4 percent) of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published today as a Web Exclusive by the journal Health Affairs. The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually - counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.

Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38% had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.

Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56% owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work - losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most. Families in bankruptcy suffered many privations - 30% had a utility cut off and 61% went without needed medical care.

The research, carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, is the first in-depth study of medical causes of bankruptcy. With the cooperation of bankruptcy judges in five Federal districts (in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas) they administered questionnaires to bankruptcy filers and reviewed their court records.

Dr. David Himmelstein, the lead author of the study and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard commented: "Unless you're Bill Gates you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick."

Today's health insurance policies - with high deductibles, co-pays, and many exclusions - offer little protection during a serious illness. Uncovered medical bills averaged $13,460 for those with private insurance at the start of their illness. People with cancer had average medical debts of $35,878.

"The paradox is that the costliest health system in the world performs so poorly. We waste one-third of every health care dollar on insurance bureaucracy and profits while 2 million people go bankrupt annually and we leave 45 million uninsured" said Dr. Quentin Young, National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program. "With national health insurance ("Medicare for All"), we could provide comprehensive, lifelong coverage to all Americans for the same amount we are spending now and end the cruelty of ruining families financially when they get sick."

###

Copies of the paper are available on-line at www.pnhp.org/bankruptcy

The password is "uninsured"

"Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy," Himmelstein et al, Health Affairs Web Exclusive, February 2, 2005.

Physicians for a National Health Program is an organization of 12,000 physicians. PNHP has chapters and spokespeople across the U.S. For contacts, call 312-782-6006

[RadicalMom]

1. I just sent this on to johnkerry.com. You never know who might not

have received this.

[area51]

5. K.O.

Maybe Keith Olbermann might like to cover this.

---

"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

[EFerrari]

2. Sent to L.A. Greens. n/t

[cthrumatrix]

3. Heath Savings Accounts are "not sufficient" for mediacal bills....

bills are too large ...HSA's could not keep up if there were really a need

[eridani]

4. Exactly. Just like Fire Savings Accounts won't help you--

--if you have substantial losses in a fire.