Proportion of families having difficulty paying medical bills declines
Those without insurance or in public programs are twice as likely to have trouble paying medical bills
A preliminary analysis of healthcare cost data released this week by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that fewer families reported difficulty paying for medical expenses in the first half of 2012 compared to the same period a year earlier.
While the decline is good news and likely reflects the overall slowing of the growth in healthcare costs over the past few years and an improving economy, the report still shows that slightly more than one-in-five families reported financial difficulties paying their healthcare costs. In all, 20.3 percent of families in the period January to June 2012 reported having difficulty paying medical bills in the past 12 months, down from 21.7 percent in the first six months of 2011.
"Based on the earlier trends we've noted, this really isn't a surprise and it coincides with moderating health-care costs," said Peter Cunningham, a senior fellow at the Center for Studying Health System Change in a Bloomberg News report. "People just started pulling back on what they are using and spending in terms of health care, which isn't too dissimilar to what we've seen in other sectors of the economy."
The most recent findings are from the National Health Information Survey, which has been conducted by NCHS since 2011. The report used information obtained in more than 155,000 interviews with people under the age of 65 who lived in a family – defined as two or more related persons living together in the same housing unit.
Not surprisingly, those without any form of health insurance had the highest rate of financial distress related to medical bills, with 36.3 percent reporting financial difficulty paying their bills in the past 12 months. This compares with only 14 percent of people with private insurance experiencing similar troubles. Of those with public health insurance, 25.6 percent had trouble paying their bills.
Children were more likely to be in a family having difficulty paying medical bills (21.8 percent) than those 18 and older (19.7 percent), though the rate for children did decrease significantly downward from the 23.7 percent who were in families that had problems paying medical bills the year prior.
Among income levels, those who the report deemed the "near poor" (earning between 100 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level) showed the highest rates of financial distress due to medical bills – 34.1 percent – down only slightly from 35 percent in 2011. This compares with 30.3 percent of the poor (those earning at or below the FPL) who had difficulty paying medical bills. Only 14.1 percent of people in families earning more than 200 percent of FPL had trouble paying their medical bills.
Photo used with permission from Shuttershock.com.
