The Study: Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy (February 2005)
by David U. Himmelstein, Elizabeth Warren, Deborah Thorne, and Steffie Woolhandler
Abstract
In 2001, 1,458 million American families filed for bankruptcy. To investigate medical contributors to bankruptcy, we surveyed 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts and subsequently completed in-depth interviews with 931 of them. About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9-2.2 million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy. Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of the illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness. Medical debtors were 42 percent more likely than other debtors to experience lapses in coverage. Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial catastrophe when sick.
Bios
David Himmelstein is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care physician at Cambridge Hospital in Cambridge, MA.
Elizabeth Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School in Boston. She was chief adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission.
Deborah Thorne is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ohio University in Athens.
Steffie Woolhandler is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, where she codirects the General Medicine Faculty Development Fellowship Program. She practices primary internal medicine at Cambridge Hospital.