Half of foreclosures attributable to health care costs

Published

In contrast, we find that half of all foreclosures have medical causes, and we estimate that medical crises put 1.5 million Americans in jeopardy of losing their homes last year.

Half of all respondents (49%) indicated that their foreclosure was caused in part by a medical problem, including illness or injuries (32%), unmanageable medical bills (23%), lost work due to a medical problem (27%), or caring for sick family members (14%). We also examined objective indicia of medical disruptions in the previous two years, including those respondents paying more than $2,000 of medical bills out of pocket (37%), those losing two or more weeks of work because of injury or illness (30%), those currently disabled and unable to work (8%), and those who used their home equity to pay medical bills (13%). Altogether, seven in ten respondents (69%) reported at least one of these factors.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1416947

Frightening statistic. One medical crisis can put your family on the street.

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Specializes in He who hesitates is probably right....

Most of those foreclosures are due to the government forcing banks to make loans that the customer was not capable of repaying, medical crisis or not.

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http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1416947

Frightening statistic. One medical crisis can put your family on the street.

Do you actually read any of the articles you post or do you just submit the abstract after a quick glance? Because you keep submitting articles that are terribly done when you read the whole article.

They had a 6.5% response rate! I think that is the lowest response rate I have ever seen in a published study.

In the study:

If you or your spouse were out of work for 2 weeks because of illness in the past 2 years that was a positive response! 30% responded yes. 2 weeks is a pretty weak metric because if being out of work for 2 weeks causes you to go into foreclosure, in all reality you couldnt afford your house.

The median medical bills that was the "specific cause" of their foreclosure was $5000. Again, if $5000 causes you to be foreclosed upon, you cannot afford your house. So while the article says that 49% reported their foreclosure was caused by a "medical cause" that reality is not supported by the data that the article puts forth.

The article tries to say that medical illness is a major cause of foreclosure but it seems like the data really support the idea that those who are getting foreclosed upon did not give themselves enough of a buffer in case they had a crisis. If being out 2 weeks of work or $5000 causes you to be foreclosed upon, you cannot afford your house.

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RESULTS: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these

medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for

medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical

bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three

quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable

to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors,

the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.

CONCLUSIONS: Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies.

http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0002-9343/PIIS0002934309004045.pdf
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wow, didn't realize they were barred from renting. Health insurance doesn't guarantee a person will not miss work because of an illness or injury. It also will not prevent someone from being disabled and unable to work.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1416947

Frightening statistic. One medical crisis can put your family on the street.

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Specializes in ER.

So with Obamacare, if you get hurt the government will pay your bills too?? I didn't see that in the bill.

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Health care reform has little or nothing to do with whether employees are covered by a sick leave or disability insurance program....

the_week_13917_27.jpg

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Most of those foreclosures are due to the government forcing banks to make loans that the customer was not capable of repaying, medical crisis or not.

Why keep repeating the falsehoods advanced by Hannity et al......

But the suggestion that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA is widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions. A study released earlier this year by a law firm specializing in CRA compliance estimated that in the 15 most populous metropolitan areas, 84.3 percent of subprime loans in 2006 were made by financial institutions not governed by the CRA. Moreover, Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2008 speech that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added].
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Ok, but according to the Center for Research on Globalization article entitled "Who are the Architects of Economic Collapse?" http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10860 :

"Is Obama committed to "taming Wall Street" and "disarming financial markets"?

Ironically, it was under the Clinton administration that these policies of "greed and irresponsibility" were adopted. The 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) was conducive to the the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. A pillar of President Roosevelt's "New Deal", the Glass-Steagall Act was put in place in response to the climate of corruption, financial manipulation and "insider trading" which resulted in more than 5,000 bank failures in the years following the 1929 Wall Street crash.

Under the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, effective control over the entire US financial services industry (including insurance companies, pension funds, securities companies, etc.) had been transferred to a handful of financial conglomerates and their associated hedge funds.

The Engineers of Financial Disaster

Who are the architects of this debacle?

Lawrence Summers
played a key role in lobbying Congress for the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act. His timely appointment by President Clinton in 1999 as Treasury Secretary spearheaded the adoption of the Financial Services Modernization Act in November 1999. Upon completing his mandate at the helm of the US Treasury, he became president of Harvard University (2001- 2006).

Paul Volker
was chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in the l980s during the Reagan era. He played a central role in implementing the first stage of financial deregulation, which was conducive to mass bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, leading up to the 1987 financial crisis.

Timothy Geithner
is CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is the most powerful private financial institution in America. He was also a former Clinton administration Treasury official. He has worked for Kissinger Associates and has also held a senior position at the IMF. The FRBNY plays a behind the scenes role in shaping financial policy. Geithner acts on behalf of powerful financiers, who are behind the FRBNY. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Jon Corzine
is currently governor of New Jersey, former CEO of Goldman Sachs."

This was information was taken from a non-US website.

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Specializes in He who hesitates is probably right....
Ok, but according to the Center for Research on Globalization article entitled "Who are the Architects of Economic Collapse?" http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10860 :

"Is Obama committed to "taming Wall Street" and "disarming financial markets"?

Ironically, it was under the Clinton administration that these policies of "greed and irresponsibility" were adopted. The 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) was conducive to the the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. A pillar of President Roosevelt's "New Deal", the Glass-Steagall Act was put in place in response to the climate of corruption, financial manipulation and "insider trading" which resulted in more than 5,000 bank failures in the years following the 1929 Wall Street crash.

Under the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, effective control over the entire US financial services industry (including insurance companies, pension funds, securities companies, etc.) had been transferred to a handful of financial conglomerates and their associated hedge funds.

The Engineers of Financial Disaster

Who are the architects of this debacle?

Lawrence Summers
played a key role in lobbying Congress for the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act. His timely appointment by President Clinton in 1999 as Treasury Secretary spearheaded the adoption of the Financial Services Modernization Act in November 1999. Upon completing his mandate at the helm of the US Treasury, he became president of Harvard University (2001- 2006).

Paul Volker
was chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in the l980s during the Reagan era. He played a central role in implementing the first stage of financial deregulation, which was conducive to mass bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, leading up to the 1987 financial crisis.

Timothy Geithner
is CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is the most powerful private financial institution in America. He was also a former Clinton administration Treasury official. He has worked for Kissinger Associates and has also held a senior position at the IMF. The FRBNY plays a behind the scenes role in shaping financial policy. Geithner acts on behalf of powerful financiers, who are behind the FRBNY. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Jon Corzine
is currently governor of New Jersey, former CEO of Goldman Sachs."

This was information was taken from a non-US website.

If it isn't CNN, NBC, Daily Kos, or Huffington Post, HM2 never heard of it..:D

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the nation magazine has aggressively condemned all of these characters...

summers, geithner, corzine, volker, fischer, phil gramm, bernanke, hank paulson, rubin, not to mention alan greenspan, al al. are buddies; they play golf together; they have links to the council on foreign relations and the bilderberg; they act concurrently in accordance with the interests of wall street; they meet behind closed doors; they are on the same wave length; they are democrats and republicans.

while they may disagree on some issues, they are firmly committed to the washington-wall street consensus. they are utterly ruthless in their management of economic and financial processes. their actions are profit driven. outside of their narrow interest in the "efficiency" of "markets", they have little concern for "living human beings". how are people's lives affected by the deadly gamut of macro-economic and financial reforms, which is spearheading entire sectors of economic activity into bankruptcy.

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