Many Americans today are suffering from the strangleholds of medical debt. In fact, a large number of Americans have more healthcare debt than they have emergency savings, which doesn’t bode well for their future or for their overall health.
According to a new Bankrate.com survey, one-quarter of Americans have more medical debt than emergency savings. Fifty-one percent have more emergency savings than medical debt. However, more than half (55 percent) are concerned that medical debt could actually destroy their personal finances in the future.
With reports that Obamacare has ruined millions of Americans’ healthcare coverage, more than half (55 percent) of survey respondents are either very or somewhat worried that they will lose health insurance.
“With the Affordable Care Act, anybody who now wants insurance can get it. The question now becomes: ‘Can I afford to use it?'” David Cusano, a senior research fellow at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, told finance website. “People confronting out-of-pocket maximums at around $7,000 or deductibles of $5,000 for a family — that’s a lot of money. You throw prescription drug co-pays into the mix, and I can see where you would be worried.”
As the first year of Obamacare was an utter disaster all across the country, some insurance experts believe the second year will be just as bad for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Obama administration and the American people.
“It’s a legitimate concern because, before the Affordable Care Act, employer-based insurance was declining; that continues today and is presently under attack,” noted Tom Baker, a professor of insurance law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “It seems plausible to me that it won’t continue to exist.”
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