Dealing With the Costs of Health Care in America

MSNBC recently covered the National Center for Health Statistic's (NCHS) report on the financial burden of health care.  The NCHS questioned Americans on how easily they were able to pay medical bills from January to June of 2011.  The estimates show that one in five Americans live in a family that is having problems paying medical bills in the past 12 months.  One in ten Americans are in a family that has medical bills that they are not able to pay.  Also, just over a quarter of Americans live in a family that has medical bills that are being paid over time.  Lastly, one in three Americans lives in a family that is experiencing some kind of financial burden due to medical costs. The full report investigates how various demographics are dealing with medical bills.  The most notable stat within these demographics is the fact that those in the 0-17 age group have the highest probability of experiencing some sort of financial burden stemming from health care bills.  With Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act still in the process of being integrated into the health care system, it will be interesting to see how these numbers may or may not be affected.