Thursday, February 03, 2005
By Christopher Snowbeck
If you think government bureaucracy is bad, Mike Stout thinks you should look at the current state of private health insurance.
Stout, who owns a small printing business in Homestead, recently underwent treatment for a kidney stone at a local hospital. Since then, he’s received 56 separate documents from both his health plan and the hospital detailing his benefits and the various charges for his care.
When he underwent the same procedure at the same hospital seven years ago, Stout received just one statement of his benefits.
“My own insurance company can’t even explain all this,” Stout said. The flood of paperwork is indicative of a broader problem with administrative waste, Stout said yesterday at a Downtown news conference, where he joined union leaders and a physician in calling for a government-run national health insurance plan.
The group took as its point of departure a study released yesterday showing that about half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States strike people in the wake of a family illness or injury. The study found that many of those bankrupt households were led by middle-class workers who had health insurance at some point in their illness.
Using the study, researchers estimate that about 29,000 people in Pennsylvania were caught up in medically related bankruptcies last year, said Dr. William Wood, a Pittsburgh physician and member of Physicians for a National Health Program.
While some attorneys who handle personal bankruptcy cases in the Pittsburgh area questioned the study, at least one longtime practitioner said the findings matched her experience.
“I would say that about one-third of the bankruptcies are people who do have illnesses going on, or are elderly with medical issues,” said Carlota Bohm, a Downtown attorney who deals with personal bankruptcies.
Many households’ credit card debts are driven by medical bills, Bohm said, adding that she’d seen a significant increase in such cases in recent years.
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(Christopher Snowbeck can be reached at csnowbeck@post-gazette.com or 412 263-2625.)
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