Unpaid medical bills are now the number one reason people are filing for bankruptcy. So, what is causing these staggering numbers?
How does the high medical bills really cost here in the US?
For example, would you have guessed that people who have insurance still had an average of $17,749 in medical debts. As you might guess, it’s even worse for people without insurance as they had an average of $26,971 in medical debts. And those who did not have insurance during their illness had an average of $33,568 in medical debts.
The infographic shown below created by the National Debt Relief illustrates the realities of medical debt, causes of high medical bills and how to deal with medical debt.
The rest of the story
Study the Infographic shown here and you’ll find some other shocking statistics. For example, it shows that the leading causes of medical debts are hospital costs (48%), followed by prescription drugs (18.6%) and doctor’s bills (15.1%).
The really tragic statistic
But the really tragic statistic is that 1.7 million of us will be forced into bankruptcy as a result of medical debts. In fact, medical debt has become the number one reason why people file for bankruptcy. Plus, about 11 million Americans will be forced to burden themselves with credit card debts in order to pay their healthcare costs.
Featured image credit: StockMonkeys.com via cc
