The US bankruptcy rate (6.9 per thousand) for the year 2004 is more than twice as high as the Canadian bankruptcy rate (2.6 per thousand). The main reason for the huge disparity in bankruptcy rates in Canada and the US is because of the different health care systems in the two countries.
Canada has universal health care for all citizens paid for out of taxes. The US system is based on private enterprise mainly provided by insurance companies.
A Harvard Study reported that half of US bankruptcies were caused by medical Bills (MSNBC) & (ABC News). The study was published online in February of 2005 by Health Affairs. The Harvard study concluded that illness and medical bills caused half (50.4 percent) of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001. The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually — counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children.
Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work — losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most. Families in bankruptcy suffered many privations — 30 percent had a utility cut off and 61 percent went without needed medical care.
The research, carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, is the first in-depth study of medical causes of bankruptcy. With the cooperation of bankruptcy judges in five Federal districts (in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas) they administered questionnaires to bankruptcy filers and reviewed their court records.
Bankruptcy Canada Blog
The Bankruptcy Canada Blog has an interesting post about the disparity between the bankruptcy rates in the US and Canada. It notes that the rate in the US is almost twice as high as the rate in Canada. Definitely worth
A study, , entitled: “Medical Bankruptcy: Myth Versus Fact,”
released last week on the Health Affairs website, a health policy journal, refutes previous findings that medical debt contributes to a majority of personal bankruptcies.
The study said medical debt is a contributing factor in 17 percent of personal bankruptcies. The study was in response to the February 2005 study, “Illness And Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy,” by David Himmelstein of Harvard Medical School, along with Elizabeth Warren, Deborah Thorne and Steffie Woolhandler, that also appeared on the Health Affairs Website, which concluded that medical debt contributes to 54.5 percent of personal bankruptcies.
Professors Himmelstein, Warren, Thorne, and Woolhandler responded to the “Medical Bankruptcy: Myth Versus Fact” article at this site.
This was a false study thatt threw into the Category of MEDICAL BANKRUPTCY anyone who had even a $5 Medical bill listed in the Bankruptcy. I myself have a $300 bill for Dentistry and IF I filed today to whipe out my credit card bills and all the other Obligations I have (I know people that have gone through more then 1 bankruptcy) Even though I have $20K in Obligations that have nothing to do with Medical, THEY WOUD include me in the MEDICAL BANKRUPTCY FILING. Ludicrous!! Very Shameful and extremely disingenuous. Obama would be Proud,Someone Could sayy bigger lies then him. =D
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