Widespread medical debt is a uniquely American downside. Roughly 40% of U.S. adults have no less than $250 in medical debt, in response to a survey performed by Kaiser Family Foundation.
“The historical past of medical debt is mainly a historical past of the altering reply to the next query: When the affected person cannot pay the invoice, who foots it?” mentioned Dr. Luke Messac, an emergency doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who’s writing a guide in regards to the historical past of medical debt.
As health-care costs rose over the previous fifty years, sufferers had been being requested to pay extra out of pocket once they acquired care.
There are many sophisticated causes for the rise in the price of care corresponding to not prioritizing preventive care or a scarcity of worth transparency, however one of many largest catalysts for inflation was the rise of medical insurance.
“It was once you get this third-party payer system the place the affected person does not must pay all the price of it straight, the insurer pays a bit of it,” mentioned. Dr….
2023-01-08 08:05:01 How medical insurance might have made well being care dearer
Source from www.cnbc.com