In 2015, over 800,000 people filed for bankruptcy in America, to which, previous studies indicated that a substantial reason behind such bankruptcies were unforeseen medical bills, along with the aftermath of this unpleasant event. For instance, if you have been working and are injured, hurt, or become ill, all of the following may also occur, such as: medical issues preclude you from continuing to work, your home necessitates a second mortgage in order to pay medical bills, credit is damaged, overall income has been truncated or significantly reduced, transportation issues, piled up bills from other creditors, and so forth, of which the proximate cause of all of these issues coming to the fore, is the medical issue in the first place.
While the government likes to believe that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has helped to ease some of these problems, that may be true to a point, but the monthly premiums for these medical plans are definitely high, the deductibles are burdensome, the out-of-pocket expenses are deliberately opaque, as well as these plans don't cover everything, and they certainly don't cover lost income and other assorted issues that a medical problem brings to a family dependent upon steady and reliable income. In 2013, as reported by nerdwallet: "unpaid medical bills are expected to be the No.1 cause of bankruptcy filings…" We shouldn't be surprised by such a statistic mainly because as reported by esquire.com: "56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined," as well as reported by offthegridnews.com in 2015: "40 percent of consumers surveyed said they lived paycheck to paycheck."
All of the above indicates that an entire families' infrastructure can easily come crashing down, when a given family suffers through unexpected medical bills. It seems self-defeating in these types of situations for the government to offer little or no recourse for those burdened under heavy medical debt, except to file bankruptcy or to suffer through the consequences of falling further and further behind on monetary commitments with the inevitable consequences of damaged credit, late fees and penalties, along with higher associated interest rates, as well as the invariable harassing phone calls and mailed billing statements that reflect the certain fact that accumulating bills are significantly past due.
You might think that having unexpected health issues and medical expenses, would be suffering enough, without also taking away the very home and/or disrupting the lives of fellow Americans, yet, way too often that is the case. While there might not be any easy solutions to this problem, the current version in which particular unfortunate individuals at their greatest time of need are basically pushed to the brink, and subsequently economically devastated for years to come, while also possibly suffering from what now is a long-term physical debility, is hardly becoming of a nation with the wealth and reputation that America represents.
The fact of the matter is that medical expenses are very high in America, with those same expenses rising at a rate far exceeding inflation over the last few decades, yet for many people their wages have barely, if even, kept up with inflation. This would signify that when it comes to healthcare, more low-cost alternatives must become available to those most in need, in which, through technology, through screening, through efficiency, through algorithms, through more usage of generic drugs and long-standing medicines no longer under patent, through registered nurses and medical students taking more responsibility for patient care, cost savings can be generated and pass through to those most truly in need of a reliable hand and considerate care.