The single biggest cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States isn’t job loss or irresponsible use of credit. It’s medical expenses.<\/p>\n
An analysis this year by NerdWallet Health found that about 60% of all bankruptcies are health related. And a comprehensive study by Harvard researchers who examined a large sample of 2007 bankruptcy filings found that, “using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies \u201d\u00a6 were medical.” That research, published in the American Journal of Medicine, found that most of these “medical debtors were well educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations.”<\/p>\n
And although access to health insurance can help stave off medical debt, it doesn’t solve the problem. About 10 million insured Americans have medical bills they are unable to pay. The Harvard researchers found that three-quarters of the medical debtors they studied had health insurance.<\/p>\n