BOB HERBERT: Your MasterCard or Your Life

[Veronica.Franco]

Your MasterCard or Your Life

By BOB HERBERT
Americans are increasingly living in a house of cards — credit cards.

A disturbing new report shows that with health care costs continuing their sharp rise, low- and middle-income patients are reaching for their credit cards with alarming frequency to cover treatment that they otherwise would be unable to afford.

This medical debt, to be paid off in many cases at sky-high interest rates, is being loaded onto consumer debt that is already at dangerously high levels. Many families have been crushed by the load, driven from their homes, forced into bankruptcy, and worse.

The report, released last week, was jointly compiled by Demos, a public policy group in New York, and the Access Project, which is affiliated with a health policy institute at Brandeis University and is trying to broaden the availability of health care in the U.S.

Imagine for a moment the seriously ill patient who needs to be hospitalized. In the cold new world of health care, the primary message to such patients is often “Show me the money!”

http://wealthyfrenchman.blogspot.com/2007/01/your-mastercard-or-your-life.html

[benEzra]

1. Medical issues and credit cards...

We have a chronically ill 7-year-old (DiGeorge syndrome, aka VCFS, 7 heart procedures so far) and can't get Medicaid because our gross income is high enough to pay taxes on, and they don't look at expenses except in the most extreme cases. The same is true of most hospital financial assistance--sorry, middle class person, no help for you, regardless of what your expenses are.

Some hospitals pretend that each visit is a separate account, and want a $25/mo minimum payment on EVERY account...others say, pay your $500 bill within 3 months or we turn you over to collections...

So you spend everything you have on housing, medical, and utilities, and then you find that the fridge is empty, or your son is almost out of his $300+/month nutritional drink (which he'll starve without, but which insurance won't cover because he's not tube-fed), or you have to take him on an 1800-mile round trip to see an out-of-state cardiologist every 4 months, and your credit cards are maxed out, but there's a $5K credit card in the cabinet that you've never used, and it's either activate and use that, or your son goes hungry because neither your insurance company nor state agencies will help...welcome to the world of the middle-class parent of a special-needs kid.

Been there, done that. Bought the T-shirt. And we're luckier than most, I suspect (we have had to pawn some things now and then that we bought in better times, and I have some valuables on consignment right now, but generous help from family and friends have so far kept us out of bankruptcy). Right now, I feel like we're starting to climb out of the hole, and we have a CAP-MR/DD appeal last week that we should hear from soon. Fingers crossed.