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in the US, roughly 2 million people do [bankrupt due to medical bills] a year, and another 56 million struggle to pay their bills This is misinterpreting the d
by CWuestefeld 10y ago
in the US, roughly 2 million people do [bankrupt due to medical bills] a year, and another 56 million struggle to pay their bills
This is misinterpreting the data. The vast majority of this is the problems caused by lost income - an inability to work while ill, not because of the medical bills themselves.
EDIT: remove repeated phrase
- wk_end 10y agoThe press release for the original study this article is based on claims they've accounted for this: "NerdWallet Health chose to include only bankruptcy explicitly tied to medical bills, excluding indirect reasons like lost work opportunities." [0] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-bills/nerdwallet-health-study-estimates-56-million-americans-65-struggle-medical-bills-2013/ https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-bill...
- CWuestefeld 10y agoI guess I should knuckle down and look at the survey methodology to see for sure. But given my time constraints, I'll just note that while I acknowledge the ambiguity, I read that statement as closer to "we don't count people that missed out on a better job or promotion" (emphasizing the word "opportunity", I guess), rather than saying "we discounted all foregone income".