Today’s Managing Health Care Costs Number is 20%
The good news is that more Americans have health insurance, largely due to the Affordable Care Act.
The bad news is that even those with insurance have a hard time paying their medical bills. In fact, 20% of those under 65 with health insurance (whether through an employer or through a health care exchange) reported they had trouble paying medical bills. Among the uninsured, this was 53%. Surprisingly, 18% of those on Medicaid reported difficulty paying medical bills, which should be prevented by federal limits on Medicaid out of pocket responsibility.
Kaiser Family Foundation and the New York Times reported yesterday on their huge new study – which included 1204 adults under 65 who reported having trouble paying medical bills, and 1371 who did not have trouble paying medical bills.
The study is large and meaningful - and gives us a sense of the system that many Americans feel is not providing them with meaningful coverage, even as the prevalence of uninsured has decreased. I'm reprinting a set of graphics from the Kaiser Family Foundation report:
The uninsured, the poor, and the disabled had the most trouble with medical bills
Trouble paying medical bills had a substantial impact on peoples' lives, and left them more financially vulnerable.
It's not clear that having physicians in the middle of this is good anyway. We need general disclosure so anyone can know the price, as opposed to having physicians add this to their set of responsibilities.
