According to this article,
http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-110806-6784-1-five-quick-ways-to-bankrupt-yourself?ywaad=ad0035&nc

Reason #2 for bankruptcy in USA is unanticipated medical bills due to illness.

Here’s what the excerpt says on the link:

2. Assuming Insurance Will Cover Your Medical Bills

So, maybe you budget. You make an allowance for food, clothes, beer.

But do you have an allowance for medical costs?

Here’s why you should: The No. 1 cause of bankruptcy is medical bills.

Harvard researchers found that 62 percent of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Even more disturbing: 78 percent of those were people who had insurance.

"Things happen. Surprises happen," Kothari said. "And people don’t prepare for the unexpected. They don’t have a mindset of, ‘How do I prepare myself for the unexpected?’"

Of course, the best medicine is to not get sick.
….

So doesn’t this indicate a serious problem when 78% of people with medical insurance STILL go bankrupt from getting ill? And the amount of out of pocket cost of health insurance has no upper limit?

Do Canadians think this indicates correctly that U.S. healthcare reform by Obama was a step in the right direction?
whoops I didn’t read the statistic correctly.

Among the 62% of Americans whose reason for going bankrupt is due to medical bills, 78% of those are people who had health insurance!
I think we don’t have to do exactly what Canada did under Tommy Douglass, but we should have a Maximum liability that a patient can possibly owe for an illness and start from there….
you can’t budget when you have an unlimited liability for sickness…It’s discouraging because if you are a coal miner, your medical liability may exceed the total of all income earned over your entire life
Now some Americans respond to this by saying "It doesn’t matter how many go bankrupt, doing something to fix this is called ’socialism’, punishing successful corporations to reward people who weren’t successful at budgeting themselves."

But if 78% of 62% of Americans who are bankrupt HAVE insurance! Then isn’t it the system that’s screwed up? Not the result of people being stupid with their money?

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Before I was married I filed both ch 13 and 7 bankruptcies. The 13 was dismissed in 2004 and I later filed ch 7, which was discharged in 2005. I am now married and don’t know if my husband and I can file ch 13. He has never filed bankruptcy. Or can he file individually, even though we are married? We’ve suffered a traumatic loss of income and are at risk of losing our home. Thanks for your help.

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How come cons only offer obstruction and no alternative? How are we going to be able to handle over 50 million uninsured Americans? Health care costs that are sky rocketing, bankruptcies due to health care costs through the roof, emergency rooms with 12 hour plus waits for urgent problems…..

Or do cons think there is no problem and feel like sticking their head in the sand and protecting the rich and corporations is what is best for America?
Notice no solutions are being offered…come on in your own words people give me the fixes.

Technorati Tags: 50 million, bankruptcies, corporations, emergency rooms, head in the sand, health care costs, sky, uninsured americans health care

Rhttp://grid.ontheissues.org/Issue_Grid.htm
Click on the Icon for documented evidence

Abortion
HC – Safe Legal & Rare
BO – Yes on Roe; Yes on Stem Cells

Budget & Economy
HC – Balance Budget, Pay Down Debt
BO – Pay as you go, Regulate Mortgages

Civil Rights
HC – Pro-Gay rights and Women’s rights
BO – Strong civil unions & affirmative action

Corporations
HC – Limit Bankruptcies & corporate Welfare
BO – Close Loopholes; reward domestic jobs

Crime
HC – 3 Strikes OK; DNA required.
Alternate sentencing; Restrict Death Penalty

Drugs
Treatment & Drug Courts
BO – Understand Drug Abuse

Education
HC – Support Public Schools; No Vouchers
BO – Merit Pay; Free College

Energy & Oil
HC – Ratify Kyoto
BO – Increase CAFÉ; alternative fuels

Environment
HC – Fund EPA & Clean Air
BO – Protect National Parks; Reduce Mercury

Foreign Policy
HC – Focus on Peace
BO – Strengthen NATO; More Foreign Aid

Free Trade
HC – Humanization plus Globalization
BO – No CAFTA; Fair Trade, (not free trade

Technorati Tags: 3 strikes, affirmative action, alternative fuels, balance budget, bankruptcies, civil unions, corporate welfare, death penalty, drug abuse education, drug courts, foreign aid, foreign policy, gay rights, issue grid, kyoto, loopholes, national parks, roe, stem cells, vouchers

I just was watching news ticker on bloomberg channel and it says ”that oil is expected to rally/go up to or higher before mid-summer because of demand rebounding.What is all of this nonsense when we are in a global recession,people losing their jobs left and right,’’supposed to be conserving energy”,’’supposed to switch on to alternative energy & off-shore oil drilling”(what pres.obama promised in his campaign),auto makers possible bankruptcies and more possible lay-offs,people ‘’supposed to have been driving less”,and supposed to be buying small compact fuel efficient hybrid type vehicles.Were you’ll serious about carrying out these stuff or were these just empty threaths that played right into opec trap?
Will it be like 2007/2008 and wait until crude oil get back to over 5 a barrel then make more false threaths to OPEC with absolutely little to no action to back it up?

Technorati Tags: alternative energy, amp, auto makers, bankruptcies, compact fuel, conserving energy, crude oil, global recession, hybrid type, jobs, lay offs, news ticker, nonsense, oil drilling, opec, shore oil, type vehicles

How would you solve our foreign diplomacy problems? Bomb all of our enemies? Do we start nuking Korea, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, Palestine China. Would that solve it? Then what do we do with all those dying people?

How would you solve our financial problems? Let every company now fail, and all the banks fail? GM fail, all housing in foreclosure, and all people on the streets?

How would you solve our health care problems? (One in four bankruptcies is now caused by inability to pay medical costs). Would you just turn away anyone and everyone who is dying if they cannot pay? If they are in a car crash, do we let them die in the wreckage if they cannot show a medical insurance card?

I find lots of you on here are big to criticize, but I find no real alternative solutions.

Take one of these and discuss it.

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I see here a lot of criticism of Obama’s approach, but no alternatives. We have 40 million Americans with no access to health care. We have one of the highest rates of infant mortality outside of the third world. Medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcies. What do you think we should do?

Technorati Tags: access to health care, bankruptcies, infant mortality, medical bills, third world

***Do not answer this question if you don’t have an ALTERNATIVE to universal healthcare********

Since Republicans are so against universal health care, what would you propose to fix our health care system. Please do not argue that our health care system is adequate because it is obvious that the costs are too high and too many people are uninsured. Furthermore, do not argue that only people who are "bums" don’t have healthcare because many hard-working people can’t afford it.

The article cited below discusses a recent study that concluded that 60% of bankruptcies were filed due to excessive medical bills. In fact, many of these same people had health care, which was inadequate for their bills. Do Republicans have any proposals in how to lower health care costs?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090604/us_nm/us_healthcare_bankruptcy

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