“Debt is no longer just a bug in our system,” said one physician in response to a new investigation. “It is one of the main products.”
An investigation published Thursday reveals that healthcare debt is “far more pervasive” in the United States than previously known, currently impacting 41% of U.S. adults and more than 100 million people across the country.
“We’ve built a healthcare system that is more effective at extracting money from people than caring for them.”
Previous attempts to assess the extent of the medical debt crisis have understated the problem because, according to a joint study by Kaiser Health News and NPR, “much of the debt that patients accrue is hidden as credit card balances, loans from family, or payment plans to hospitals and other medical providers.”
In an effort to more accurately estimate how much of the U.S. population is facing healthcare debt—a largely foreign concept to people in countries with universal coverage systems that restrict out-of-pocket costs—the two outlets conducted a new survey “designed to capture not just bills patients couldn’t afford, but other borrowing used to pay for healthcare as well.”
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Oh, How well I know this system is corrupt. I was in the hospital watching over my dear wife when liquid was building up in her lungs. We pressed the buzzer to get a nurse to pay attention to the fact and no one came. I had to go out to the main desk and YELL for a nurse to pay attention and get her cardiologist to check her out. No one was paying attention because my wife’s roommate was always pressing the buzzer. When I finally got their attention, the Cardiologist found out about the lungs being filled with fluid and barely had enough time to drain them and save her life. The nurses did not care, except to get their paychecks. Medicare left us with a $3000 bill for just 2 nights in this horrible hospital, and of course that was only 20% of the total bill. Their charges were exorbitant for the small amount of actual work which was done.