The American Journal of Medicine
Volume 122, Issue 8 , Pages 741-746 , August 2009

Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study

  • David U. Himmelstein, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Medicine, Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass
    • Corresponding Author InformationRequests for reprints should be addressed to David U. Himmelstein, MD, Department of Medicine, Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, 1493 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
  • ,
  • Deborah Thorne, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Sociology, Ohio University, Athens
  • ,
  • Elizabeth Warren, JD

      Affiliations

    • Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass
  • ,
  • Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Medicine, Cambridge Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass

References 

  1. Sullivan TA, Warren E, Westbrook JL. The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; 2000;
  2. Himmelstein DU, Warren E, Thorne D, Woolhandler S. Illness and injury as contributors to bankruptcy. Health Aff (Millwood). February 2, 2005;[Web exclusive] http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/hlthaff.w5.63v1Accessed August 6, 2008
  3. Schoen C, Collins SR, Kriss JL, Doty MM. How many are underinsured? (Trends among U.S. adults, 2003 and 2007). Health Aff (Millwood). June 10, 2008;[Web exclusive: w298-w309] http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/hlthaff.27.4.w298v1?ijkey=rhRn2Tr4HAKZ.&keytype=ref&siteid=healthaffAccessed August 6, 2008
  4. Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, Public Law No. 109-8, 119 Stat. 23 (2005).
  5. NORC (National Opinion Research Center). Occupational Prestige/Summary. http://cloud9.norc.uchicago.edu/faqs/prestige.htmAccessed July 23, 2008
  6. Pereira J. Left behind—casualties of a changing job market; parting shot: to save on health-care costs, firms fire disabled workers. Wall Street Journal. July 14, 2003;A1
  7. Lawless RM, Littwin AK, Porter KM, et al. Did bankruptcy reform fail? (An empirical study of consumer debtors). Am Bankruptcy Law J. 2008;82:349–405
  8. The Access Project and Demos, 2007Zeldin C, Rukavina M. Borrowing to stay healthy: how credit card debt is related to medical expenses. http://www.accessproject.org/adobe/borrowing_to_stay_healthy.pdfAccessed July 18, 2008
  9. Doty MM, Edwards JN, Holgren AL. Seeing red: Americans driven into debt by medical bills. Commonwealth Fund. August 10, 2005 http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/837_Doty_seeing_red_medical_debt.pdf?section=4039Accessed July 17, 2008
  10. The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. Why not the best? (Results from the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2008). The Commonwealth Fund. 2008 http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/Why_Not_the_Best_national_scorecard_2008.pdf?section=4039Accessed July 17, 2008
  11. Himmelstein DU, Warren E, Thorne D, Woolhandler S. Discounting the debtors will not make medical bankruptcy disappear. Health Aff (Millwood). 2006;25:W84–W88
  12. Zhu N. Household consumption and personal bankruptcy. Social Science Research Network. February 2007 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=971134Accessed July 16, 2008
  13. Mathur A. Medical bills and bankruptcy filings. American Enterprise Institute. July 2006 http://www.aei.org/docLib/20060719_MedicalBillsAndBankruptcy.pdfAccessed July 16, 2008
  14. Hollingworth W, Relyea-Chew A, Comstock BA, et al. The risk of bankruptcy before and after brain or spinal cord injury: a glimpse at the iceberg's tip. Med Care. 2007;45:702–711
  15. USA Today, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard School of Public Health National Survey of Households Affected by Cancer (November 2006). http://kff.org/upload/7590.pdf
  16. de Jung T. A Review of Medical Debt in Upstate New York. Albany, NY: Empire Justice Center; 2006;
  17. Xu K, Evans D, Carrin G, et al. Protecting households from catastrophic health spending. Health Aff (Millwood). 2007;26:972–983
  18. Raccanello K, Anand J, Dolores EGB. Pawning for financing health expenditures: do health shocks increase the probability of losing the pledge?. In:  Wood D editors. The Economics of Health and Wellness: Anthropologic Perspectives. Oxford, UK: Elsevier; 2008;
  19. Reid TR. Interviews with leading health policy experts in several nations. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/interviews/Accessed July 18, 2008

 Funding: Supported by Grant #56590 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, NJ.

 Conflict of Interest: None.

 Authorship: All authors had access to the data and a role in writing the manuscript.

PII: S0002-9343(09)00404-5

doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2009.04.012

The American Journal of Medicine
Volume 122, Issue 8 , Pages 741-746 , August 2009