SEATTLE — A new study by the University of Washington shows many working-age Americans are vulnerable to bankruptcy after hospitalization related to an injury.
“We weren’t surprised to see that an injury like a car crash or a fall that gets hospitalized results in increases in medical debt and bankruptcy,” Dr. John W. Scott at UW Medicine said.
Scott, who has been a surgeon for fifteen years. He said, typically and unsurprisingly, patients who are uninsured are most vulnerable to medical debt.
“But the more surprising finding was that its actually not the lowest income patients,” he said. “It’s sort of working class and working age families that were the most effected.”
And why is that? Scott said simply: Medicaid does it job protecting people from high out-of-pocket payments. But he said working-age Americans, who use private insurance, do not get the same protections from hundreds, or potentially thousands, of dollars in out-of-pocket medical expenses.
“it’s bad to have medical debt, it’s bad for bankruptcy,” Scott said. “But what gets me interested as a physician is the impact on people’s health.”
Scott said someone is three times more likely to delay care if they already have medical debt.
“Because you fear you can’t afford it and then you delay that care you need and then those folks have worse health,” he said.
Right now, a bill is being worked on at the state legislature to decrease the permissible medical debt interest rate in the state from 9% to 1%.
date: 2026-02-15 04:05:00