Health Related Bankruptcies Are Up 50%
With all the talk about foreclosures and people buried in their credit card debt, we have failed to talk about all those that can not afford health insurance (uninsured) or those that are underinsured. Bankruptcy is easy to think about it being related to someone having to many credit cards, and then something life changing happened that forced someone to not be able to pay their debts. However, a lot of today’s bankruptcies are not necessarily from credit card debt, but from health care bills.
A recent study shows, bankruptcies that were due to medical debt rose 50 percent from 2001 to 2007. Older consumers are the ones getting hit the hardest. The elderly are unfortunately forced to retire prematurely, have not enough insurance to cover all their bills, or simply do not have any insurance. In a previous blog post I had discussed this painful problem, however things have not gotten any better for our elderly.
Part of this study involved a telephone survey. The telephone survey revealed that 41.8 percent of interviewees specifically identified a health problem contributed to their bankruptcy, 54.9 percent cited medical or drug costs, and 37.8 percent blamed income loss due to illness. Overall, 68.8 percent cited at least one of these medical causes. An additional 6.8 percent had recently borrowed money to pay medical bills. Not only is this a potential insurance related issue, but it is an issue regarding bankruptcy and consumers having no other option but to file bankruptcy. What else do they do?
Leadpile works with the bankruptcy lead type, and this is very much a lead type we have a demand for more buyers to help provide this much needed help to the consumers.