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COST: Elderly Struggle With Credit Debt, High Health Costs

Meredith Hughes - 
September 1, 2009 - 9:53am

The elderly are hard hit by credit  card debt, reports The New York Times. One big reason: health care.

Many older Americans live on fixed incomes; the value of their invested life savings and homes plummeted in the economic crash. And their credit card balances have risen.

For lower and middle class Americans over 65, the average level of credit card debt has rapidly increased since 2005, to $10,235, according to the public policy group Demos. This was a 26 percent increase, the largest of any age group. A lot of the anti-health reform rhetoric has been aimed at scaring seniors with inaccurate claims about harm to Medicare. And that's disheartening because health reform can help seniors  -- extra help with drug costs, the emphasis on better care coordination and management of chronic diseases can restrain out of pocket spending and also keep their health more stable. 

 "A great deal of senior spending is health care, and health-care costs have been outpacing inflation for a long time," David Certner, legislative policy director for AARP, told the Times. On average, senior citizens (65+) have about $4,000 in credit card debt from medical expenses such as doctor visits and prescription drug costs, according to the Times. Americans who are close to retirement age (between 50 and 64 -- too young for Medicare) already have, on average, about $2,000 in medical debt. Ruth Magnum, 60, accumulated $5,000 of debt helping her granddaughter, who had colon cancer, pay for clothing, prescriptions, and doctors' visits.

Those older Americans get charged more for health insurance premiums -- often five times as much as a younger person, reports Julie Appleby in a USA Today/Kaiser Health News article. Many policymakers believe health reform should mandate a less severe ratio of two-to-one, a proportion endorsed by the AARP. Though this would drive down costs for older people, it could increase costs for younger groups.

Some younger people feel it's fair for seniors to pay more -- after all, they tend to utilize more care. Young people are less likely to buy insurance, because they are often healthy, aren't making as much money as their middle-aged counterparts, and believe they don't need it -- though we all know, no one is immune to accident, injury, or illness. But as Nancy Metcalf, of Consumer Reports told USA Today, cross subsidization is the whole point of insurance, "if you're young now, someday, if you are lucky, you will be 30 years older."

Covering everyone is a responsibility we all share. No one should go bankrupt from medical debt. No one, young or old, should be hounded by creditors because they had to see a doctor. We shouldn't make health reform a zero sum game, pitting different populations against one another, because every group needs the same thing -- sustainable, affordable, quality health insurance. 

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Comments

American diet, chronic disease, health care costs

Submitted by Dorothy Smith (not verified) on September 2, 2009 - 11:28pm.

During the health care reform debate, PBS has given about as much press to the leading cause of escalating health care costs as any other station. This is disappointing because no one has given it adequate press.

Dr. David Kessler was interviewed about his book, The End of Overeating but did not link the American addiction to salt, fat and sugar to escalating healthcare costs, Dr. Eric Finklestein, RTI, in his interview about obesity, did. Robert Kenner, Director of Food, Inc also make a link. Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, in coversations with Michael Pollen and Dr. Kessler broached the question about a tax on sugary drinks.

It has been long understood that universal access, in the form of a single payer system is the most cost effective way to deliver health care in the US with perk insurance for the those who have the money. But instead Johnson compomised our taxpayer money dearly with hospitals and doctors to get Medicare (The Transformation of American Healthcare and the Making of a Sovereign Industry, Paul Starr, 1984) and now it will take generations to "bend the curve", if ever, EVEN given the best reform efforts.

Unless there is AT LEAST a tax that includes a strong RISK label on all sugar, salt and fat - the substances shown by Dr. Kessler to be addictive, the US will continue its decline as a world leader.

Reasons:

ALL taxpayers will be paying for chronic preventable diseases which consumes over half the health care costs - the poor, illegals, under and non insured in ER, the elderly, children, the rich and the middle. This is unfair if one eats a healthy diet and avoids chronic preventable diseases. The money needs to be paid upfront - be part of the public insurance premium.

Private and employee (even public if it happens) Premiums will continue to increase because of these chronic diseases and because many will be preexisting conditions.

Those who develop diseases such as Lyme disease, most cancers, have accidents (the reasons for which we should have insurance)of keeping homes, sometimes jobs because of this inequity.

FOOD Inc will not change the amount of these substances in their foods voluntarily, nor will people readily stop eating them, without a dramatic move (such as was done with cigarettes).

Efforts to "reform" our food system are extremely slow and mostly volunteer. This will take generations.

The bottom line

We will continue to have trio of SICKNESS PROFITERS - Food, Health Insurance, Pharma INC. that will be far worst, albeit slower to slide us down the slippery slope to disaster, than our financial PROFITERS.

A tax on these substances can be done. I would call it a RISK tax, Reduction In Sickness Kitty. I suggest $.005/G fat and sugar and 100mg sodium. I have the references, I have the calculations, I have responses to the top five opposing arguements.

I am a retired senior, with a professional background in healthcare - did study earlier reform but have understood for 25 years we must tax not only cigarettes and alcohol but lifestyle choices to make a fair playing field in healthcare. I was able to do this by watching TV, reading a couple of books, and using the internet. I would be more than happy to send the 4 pages I have written, if I knew someone would read them.

Thank you