Are medical debt struggles particularly prevalent in Florida?
One would hope that, after dealing with a major health problem, a Floridian wouldn’t also have to deal with medical debt struggles. Unfortunately, a recent report indicates that struggles with medical debt may be particularly common here in Florida, along with Texas, as compared to other large states here in the U.S.
The report was done by the Commonwealth Fund and it looked into a variety of different things regarding medical insurance and medical costs in four large states: Florida, Texas, California and New York.
According to the report, paying medical bills off over time or struggling to make payments on medical bills is something 40 percent of Florida and Texas adults experience. This percentage is considerably higher than the percentages for California and New York, which were 25 percent and 30 percent respectively.
Among the many things having difficulties paying medical bills can lead to a person facing are debt collection efforts by collection agencies. According to the report, being contacted by a collection agency in relation to a medical debt is another thing that is a more common occurrence in Florida and Texas than in New York and California. Here in Florida, 17 percent of adults reported having experienced this sort of contact in the past year. The percentages for Texas, New York and California were 21 percent, 11 percent and 9 percent respectively.
The report postulates that one of the things that might be behind adults in Florida and Texas having higher occurrence levels of paying medical bills off over time or experiencing difficulties with paying medical bills than adults in New York and California is that Florida and Texas have not made full expansions to their Medicaid programs while New York and California have.
Do you think medical debt struggles are particularly prevalent here in Florida? If so, what do you think is causing such prevalence?
Facing medical debt struggles and the various things that can be connected to such struggles can put an awful lot of stress on a person, both financially and emotionally. For some individuals facing such struggles, bankruptcy may be able to help them find relief. Floridians who are wondering if bankruptcy might be able to help them with medical debt problems they are facing should consider talking the matter over with a lawyer.
Source: philly.com, “Medical Costs Hit Residents of Texas, Florida Especially Hard, Study Finds,” Robert Preidt, April 10, 2015
