Even Insured Can Face Crushing Medical Debt, Study Finds – The New York Times

…the majority of people struggling with bills are insured. Of the people in the survey reporting difficulty with their medical bills, 34 percent lacked health insurance, 39 percent had insurance through work, 14 percent were covered through public programs and 7 percent had purchased their own health plans.

One reason, many experts said, is a gradual shift in the norms about the generosity of health insurance. In recent years, health plans have come with growing deductibles and narrowing networks of providers, provisions devised to lower the cost of premiums. Those features have made health insurance accessible to a larger share of the population, but may also be leaving more insured Americans vulnerable.

via Even Insured Can Face Crushing Medical Debt, Study Finds – The New York Times.

The article claims that patients with Medicare are better protected from crushing medical bills and it is true that bills are smaller.  People with Medicare, however, have less money in the first place, and even a small deductible or copay can cause financial strain.

The article also notes that the US has the highest health care costs of any nation in the world, typically double the cost of comparable countries.   People in other European countries, for example, rarely face bankruptcy from medical bills although this is common in the US.