The Burrill Report


Despite having health insurance, a growing number of Americans are living with unmet medical needs because of worries about cost, says a new report.

Among insured families with medical bill problems, 9.2 percent of people aged 64 and younger reported they went without care for medical needs because of cost concerns in 2010, compared to 1.4 percent of those with no medical bill problems, says The Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan policy research organization.

More than one in five Americans were in families with problems paying medical bills in 2010, according to the study, funded by the by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That proportion is about the same as it was in 2007, but remained significantly higher compared with 2003—20.9 percent in 2010 versus 15.1 percent in 2003.

“Given the recession, the sluggish recovery and healthcare costs continuing to increase faster than incomes, it’s a bit surprising that the rate of medical bill problems didn’t increase,” says Anna Sommers, a senior researcher and co-author of the study. “The steady rate of medical bill problems may be a byproduct of decreased use of medical care—both by people who lost jobs and health insurance during the recession and others who cut back on medical care in the face of uncertain economic times.”

The report’s findings were based on a survey of 17,000 people nationally and assumed that the negative effects of medical bill problems in a family will affect all family members, rather than just the individuals within the family who incurred the expenses.

The underlying growth in healthcare spending will be a central factor in whether Americans experience more or fewer problems paying medical bills in the future, the study’s authors say. “If wages continue to stagnate and healthcare costs continue to grow faster than real income,” they say, “the financial burden of health care likely will grow more acute.”



December 23, 2011
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-even_the_insured_forgo_care.html