Medical Debt

Health Care Reform and Household Financial Stability

02/04/14

Bhashkar Mazumder (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) and Sarah Miller (Notre Dame) have a new study out that examines the effect of Massachusett's major health care reform in 2006 on individuals' financial well-being. Similar to the Affordable Care Act, the law requires all Massachusetts residents to purchase health insurance meeting a minimum standard of coverage (if affordable) or pay a fee.

[more]

Kaiser Family Foundation on ACA and Medical Debt

01/15/14

I'm on the road and only have time to link to the USA Today story about the Kaiser Family Foundation report on how medical debt might look like after the Affordable Care Act. Short version: high deductibles and co-pays may mean not a lot of difference for those enrolled in the cheapest bronze level plans. Credit Slips readers will want to check it out.

[more]

Medical Credit Cards: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

10/14/13

Doggie Dentures

Your in the Dentist’s chair, you just learned that you need a Root Canal, and you have no Dental Insurance.

[more]

OCC review whistleblower

01/05/13

Adam Levitin predicted here that the "independent" review of banks' foreclosure files ordered by the OCC in the wake of the robosigning scandals would be a sham, based among other things on the adverts to hire the reviewers.  Now, one apparently overqualified reviewer has told his

[more]

A Question Answered

07/31/12

Back in April, I posted about Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson investigating allegations that Accretive Health Care aggressively collected debts from hospital patients. These allegations included claims that Accreive was obtaining payments from people in emergency rooms and from their hospital bedsides.

[more]

Accretive's Bedside Manner for Debt Collection

04/30/12

The end of last week got a little busy for many of the Credit Slips bloggers and none of us talked about the story last Wednesday by Jessica Silver-Greenberg at the New York Times regarding aggressive debt collection practices by Accretive

[more]

Congress Has Its Own Limiting Principle

03/28/12

This is supposed to be a blog about credit and bankruptcy, but I can't help myself in making a short comment about one aspect of the oral argument and discussion from yesterday's challenge to the individual mandate. Credit Slips purists should note that many bankruptcy filers have lots of medical debt, so the topics are not completely unrelated.

[more]

Credit for Parenthood (in the Wall Street Journal)

02/23/12

Wall Street Journal Reporter Jessica Silver-Greenberg casts a spotlight on the market for fertility treatment loans - including loans that enable the purchase of other women's eggs  - in the article "In Vitro a Fertile Niche for Lenders."  (subscription required).

[more]

One in Five American Families Have Medical Bill Problems

12/26/11

According to this new report. As Mirya Holman and I have explained in the bankruptcy context, measuring medical bill problems and debt is notoriously contested, but the Center for Studying Health System Change does try to make clear its methods and also uses similar metrics over time.

[more]

A New Study on Medically Related Bankruptcies

06/13/11

Thanks to our friends over at WSJ's Bankruptcy Beat, a new study caught my eye on the issue of medical bankruptcies. A new study appearing in the Journal of Clinical Oncology documents an increased risk of bankruptcy with certain types of cancers. The full abstract is available.

[more]