1 in 7 Californians Have Medical Debt, Study Finds
Reed Abelson
Much of the national discussion on health care has focused on the need to expand coverage to those without insurance. But a new study from the U.C.L.A. Center for Health Policy Research underscores the limits of the current system in protecting even insured people from the financial risk of being sick.
The report, “The State of Health Insurance in California,” finds that more than 2.2 million California adults — almost one in seven working-age Californians — say they have medical debt. And two-thirds of those said they incurred the debt despite having health insurance.
“There’s so much talk about the uninsured,” said Shana Alex Lavarreda, the director of health insurance studies for the center and one of the report’s authors. “There does need to be a focus on the underinsured.”
Many consumers have policies that do not adequately protect them from high medical bills, Ms. Lavarreda said. And people with medical debt are twice as likely as those without debt to forgo or delay necessary medical care, she said.
The report is based on state health survey information gathered in 2007, when the state and country were still enjoying prosperity. Since then, unemployment has more than doubled in California. “We definitely expect the picture is much worse,” Ms. Lavarreda said.
Ms. Lavarreda’s own take is that the report points to the need for the federal government to establish a health plan that “can act as a floor and a safety net” to make sure people have sufficient coverage to protect them from financial risk if they have a serious medical condition.
The inadequacies of coverage was the subject of this New York Times article about a couple who filed for bankruptcy after accumulating nearly $200,000 in unpaid medical bills, despite having insurance.
prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/ucla-study-finds-1-in-7-californians-have-medical-debt/